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Google Real-Time Search: The Bang that Whimpered

January 26, 2010
by Gradiva Couzin

Google real-time search launched in December, 2009, and the SEO industry was wild with excitement. Then, the prominence of real-time results diminished, and the excitement fizzled out. Does real-time search matter – and what should business owners do to address it?

Since Dec 10, 2009, Google has been displaying real-time results within its standard search results. You can see examples of this by searching for popular terms such as “Miley Cyrus” or “George Clooney.” Here’s an example of a real-time result displaying on the top page of results for “toyota recall” on 1/21/10:

In its first week or so, real-time search results were displaying for a wide range of search queries. Since then, however, Google has significantly scaled back the prominence of real-time search results. While the real-time search results were flowing, we got a good idea of how it works. Here’s what we think you should know to prepare your strategy for the inevitability of its wider return:

HOW IT WORKS

Google displays recent posts from Twitter, Friendfeed, and similar sources, as well as breaking news and recently updated websites. Currently Twitter is dominating these results. Live Facebook updates are expected to join in the future.
Real time results appear to be displayed for search queries that qualify as “real-time-worthy”, which is similar to the process Google uses in its determination of which queries should display News, Images, Video, Local, etc. results. This is probably influenced by the volume of Twitter content as well as volume of search queries. As an example, real times results are not displaying this evening (1/25/2010) for “H1N1 vaccine” but they are displaying for “hope for haiti” We believe this is because there are not enough tweets, search volume, or other signals to trigger real time results for “H1N1 vaccine.”
We have only observed tweets displayed up to a maximum of about an hour. If there are a larger number of tweets on a topic, then individual tweets are displayed for shorter amount of time.
There is a very short (1 min) lag time between when a tweet is posted and when it is displayed on Google.
Google has stated that it uses similar “signals of quality” for real-time content as it does for web search; however, there does not appear to be a high barrier for tweets to be included. Twitter accounts with only a few followers are included in the results.
An individual Twitter account is not listed multiple times for the same query (in other words, you can’t keep automatically tweeting the same phrase over and over again to get listed).
Links that are included in a tweet are expanded and clickable in Google’s real-time results.
Hashtags in search queries may trigger real-time search results (for example, when we looked today, “detroit” does not trigger real-time results, but “#detroit” does).
Google will favor the “primary” tweet over any retweeted or aggregated copies.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU

If your target keywords include highly “buzz”-related terms, such as current news events, celebrity names, or other entertainment keywords, real-time search results will probably display for some of your target terms. Incorporation of real-time search results may increase the visibility of tweets, news, and other online word-of-mouth about your business.
We don’t think that increasing the volume of your own Twitter-stream activity will be a strong contributor to increased presence in real-time search results. It may also turn off followers. Instead, your Twitter strategy should focus primarily on encouraging others to tweet about you, your business or your product.
Although we do not think that optimizing or increasing your Twitter posts will have a major effect, we do recommend some finessing of your current Twitter activity:
— Timing of tweets becomes more important, because a tweet that occurs at a time when nobody is searching will not be seen.
— Because Google expands all links that are included in tweets, include links to your site in your tweets whenever appropriate.

THE LAST WORD

For now, real-time search is a small factor in the Google results mix, but be prepared for it to gain in prominence. Real-time search won’t be easy to game, and probably shouldn’t be gamed. The best way to improve your site’s presence in real-time search is to improve the buzz and online word-of-mouth around your business or product. And that’s just good online word-of-mouth strategy, isn’t it?

Readers, have you seen anything in real-time search that has really surprised you? Do you ever click on those real-time listings?

ask the experts

Google Ranks: Does Freshness Matter?

January 22, 2010
by Jennifer Grappone

Q: Does Google care if I update my site frequently? Will doing so improve my ranks?

A: “Yes” to the first question, and “maybe” to the second.

At this moment, the SEOs of the world are still getting used to the new Google landscape of real-time results, as well as searching options that include “Past 24 hours” and “Latest.”

Google now can, and often does, notice and react to new or newly modified text on your site within hours of when you made the changes.

It makes a lot of sense that Google would favor freshness, as delivering fresh results is a big bragging point for Google these days. (And Google does have significantly fresher search results than slowpoke competitors Bing and Yahoo!.)

In our recent client work, we’ve experienced a repeated pattern: Optimize a page properly, rank better pretty darn quickly…in hours, not days or weeks as it used to be.

On the flip side, we’ve also noticed another pattern: The original ranking boost tends to be offset by a subsequent “correction” period, when ranks drop down. This drop is anywhere from a tiny slide to something more significant, but, at least in our experience, not back to baseline.

Why would Google first boost ranks for fresher pages and then kick them downward? It’s not necessarily to allow fresher content from competing sites to take over the top ranks. (That may be the case in high-chatter-level industries on the web, but it’s not the case in some of the sleepier industries in which we’ve seen this happen.) This phenomenon could be for a couple of reasons:

With the increased importance of real-time search, Google may be sacrificing quality assurance in favor of freshness. Google may have a “rank first, vet later” approach, and the downward correction may occur after Google takes the time to fully process the page relative to competing pages.

Just like a new text ad placed into rotation in AdWords, Google may be giving updated pages a little extra exposure, to get a chance to gain clicks and inlinks. In other words, Google may be temporarily increasing exposure to updated pages to quickly gauge their “performance.” This puts additional pressure on you, the site owner, to publish useful, compelling, meaningful content that’s properly targeted to your audience.

What does this mean for your site?

Consider optimizing your site or launching new content in phases, not all at once, to keep a “rolling inventory” of your pages in play in Google’s search results, and to send a signal to Google that your site is frequently updated.
When you find that pages with fresh content have gained higher ranks, don’t be upset by a subsequent drop. (But DO be upset if you drop below your baseline!)
Don’t modify a page randomly (Change “the” to “a” in the page title, for example) and expect rank improvements. Google may be a lot of things, but it isn’t dumb enough to reward you for that. Make real improvements or real updates, or expect poor results.

We’d love to hear from you about your experiences with fresh content. Have you experienced this up-then-down scenario before? Tell us about it in the comments!