It seems that search engine are digging through Twitter more and more

. In the past few days a came across a few episodes which made me think about how much search engine are considering Twitter content as valuable enough to be included into their own search results.

Let’s take a look at Bing first. Try looking for Al Gore this query on Bing: the very first result will be it’s Twitter page with is real time twits. This entry comes also before his personal website. This has been also confirmed by a public statement from Bing published on its community page.

Something interesting happens with Google as well. A few days ago I posted a link to one of my websites I found and I wanted to share with my Twitter followers. Analytics record show the following as the very first visit on the website right after the link was published on twitter:

216.200.55.83 invx.com [01/Jul/2009:02:49:01 +0200] “GET /a HTTP/1.1″ 404 136 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)” “-”

Clearly the page was just being crawled by Google. The link has not apperead anywhere else and it is not a fronpage or entry page for search engines on the website.

This it’s just another proof on how important Twitter is becoming in terms on search value. It’s not going to take long before Google itself will either buy or create its own real time search tool.

According to this CNET report,  Twitter will feature a search algorithm which will be able to:

crawl the links included in tweets and begin to index the content of those pages. [...] Twitter Search will also get a “reputation” ranking system soon [...]

After all, it was easy to predict. Plenty of people has been wondering that this would have happened sooner or later.
The question is if it would be able to gain a tiny share of the search engine market, considering Google evergrowing power and

If they really want to go this way they should come to terms with two main issues:

Gain some content authority

They should get a rid of all those bots and try to better develop and organize a following system able to guarantee some sort of authority: too many people add friends randomly trying to get hopefully followed themselves. This can affect link reputation and ranking system, if they’re really keen to develop one. I guess this is the first issue the should deal with.

Get safe and make people feel safer

Hacking Twitter is a bloody joke. It’s unbelievable easy. They must deal with it and sort things out as soon as possible. No service can grow in the market if people do not feel safe enough to use it and share data.

However, Twitter is still able to seduce investors. I guess it’s the proof that its search model could really work anyway. New rumors are spreading about Apple considering investing some bucks on it.
Apparently this first quarter Apple’s financial result make people wonder what will be the next step: maybe buying Twitter or jump into the videogame bandwagon with Electronic Arts?

Whatever will be, Twitter has already gained a prominent position into the market, soon things will change, and Google will have to make its move.

Before going through any possible speculation about Twitter as a search engine, it is crucial to give a proper definition to Twitter itself.

What really is Twitter?

Instant messaging platform? Social network? None of the above?

The other day I bumped in what I reckon is the best definition up to date about Twitter. According to Kevin Ryan from Search Engine Watch:

Twitter is a search engine that indexes conversations about content

Going further in analyzing Twitter through this description, he also defines another crucial aspect:

Popularity isn’t determined by backlinking in the traditional SEO sense, but self-designated by the number of retweets and followers.

…which basically defines quality information, as for every search engine.

The Twitter Search Engine

So, if we realized what Twitter actually is, let’s take a look around its main features as a search engine.

The interesting thing though is that the search feature only appears at the very bottom of twitter.com. Moreover, it’s worth to check the advanced search feature, which has plenty of features for real time search.

Why are these feature not properly exploited yet? Do you think we’re gonna see a TwitterAdWords or TwitterAdsense anytime soon?

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Something big must be going on in between Google and Twitter.

1. Twitter started ranking on Google SERPS.

This means that Google recognized Twitters in nowadays web search results as well as it’s brand.

Therefore Twitter is becoming the next service to be flooded with bogus account filled with keywords. This usually happens when a service really goes mainstream and internet markeeters start exploiting it massively…

2. Google has opened his own account on Twitter.

They set up different accounts for each one of their top services.

This is the very first message posted:

For those who are not familiar with binary code, this means I’m feeling Lucky

I do not want to draw any conclusion from this, but looking back at previous Google acquisitions timeline, I would not be surprised if big G is getting ready to put his hands on Twitter.
In 2003 Google purchased Blogspot, realizing the web was not only made by websites. Three years later they bought Youtube, since the web was not only websites and blogs. I think they’ve just realized the internet is made also of asincronous short messages…