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Finally, Search Engines can index people

by Todd Lucier on October 30, 2009

Twitter Lists = People Tags

This week Twitter Lists spread across the Web and early adopters have created lists of the people on Twitter that matter most to them.

It’s very early in the people tagging game with Twitter Lists. But, link this new tool with last weeks news of partnership deals between Google, Bing and Twitter and the new Google Social Search tool and look out on the horizon and you can see where we are going.

Why being tagged in a Twitter list matters?

Twitters deal with major search engines Google and Bing allow the search engines to crawl the content produced on Twitter. The most important element for Google to define the relevance of Content has always been links. Twitter lists will be search engine link gold.

Interestingly, Twitter lists get urls that include the list makers name as well as the name of the list chosen.
ie: http://twitter.com/#/list/toddlucier/travel-canada is a list of Canadian Travel-related Twitter users I created.

A design element that clearly signals a nod to the SEO implications of the designated list pages is that Twitter is automagically puts hyphens into the list names.

Your Followers are Tagging YOU

Interestingly, much like saving Web pages on Delicious.com where the user defines the keyword relevance of the content (not the producer of the content), it is your followers who have the power to define the most relevant tags for you, by putting you and your Twitter identity onto a list.

Get your name on the List

If you want to be recognized as a top member of your tribe on Twitter Lists and benefit from the keyword value that goes along with it, there are a few things you should and shouldn’t do:

  1. Focus on producing relevant quality content for your preferred audience.
  2. Make lists that feature to top members of your tribe. By curating a great list of the top Twitters in your tribe you will be creating a page that is bound to get some SEO attention to your Twitter account in Twitter-related search.
  3. Use keyword tags in your list names. ie: Don’t name a list – “My Twitter Buddies”. Using keywords will get your list more followers and your page more SEO attention.
  4. Follow lists of people that are important in your tribe. This will link your Twitter identity to lists of relevant Twitter users. An important side benefit will be the stream of valuable incoming Twitter content.
  5. Don’t ask to be included in a list – this doesn’t demonstrate your credibility (just your neediness to be recognized). When the urge strikes to ask to be included, refer to #1 above.
  6. Refer others for lists. Check out the new Twitter list curation tool at Listorious makes it easy to suggest top Twitter folk. If the urge strikes to recommend yourself refer to #5 above.
  7. Review your Twitter Profile and edit your one line bio to include a better description of the things you tweet about and the tribe/community you serve. Use keywords.

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Microsoft and Google search results to feature Twitter Tweets

by Todd Lucier on October 21, 2009

Microsoft search engine Bing inked a deal with Twitter that includes tweets in search results. Microsoft announced the deal onstage at the Web 2.0 Summit today. The non-exclusive deal made it easy for Google to piggyback on the Bing announcement with their own announcement of a commitment to feature Tweets in search results.

Significance of the Bing / Google Twitter Announcements for Travel:

Tweets aren’t just for your followers on Twitter any more. Travel regions and tourism businesses will need to post relevant tweets and links to benefit from higher visibility among search users whether or not they are users of Twitter. Tweets will show up in Search results.

The upshot: Get tourism businesses in your region tweeting!

Twitter on Bing

Using http://bing.com/twitter will reveal relevant real time Twitter search results. Microsoft also announced that soon Facebook status updates will also be featured on the search engine. What is interesting is that Bing sample results page features the tweeted link title and sample tweets featuring the avatar (photo) and text of the tweet!

bing shows twitter search results

Twitter on Google

Marissa Mayer announces Google deal with Twitter at Web 2.0 Summit (youtube)

Surely the enlightenment of embedding Twitter in search results on Google was overdue.

In May this year I reported how Google was not invited to the Twitter Party, and that Twitter search was indeed a critical piece of the search puzzle for Web 3.0 – the Here and Now Web.

It appears now, Google and Twitter have come to a financial agreement that will result in tweets being featured in Google search results.

News on the Twitter deal from the Google Blog

“Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months.”

What will Tweets in Search Results look like? We don’t know yet.

Some users of Firefox have been using a Greasemonkey script which embeds Twitter search results at the top of any Google search result as shown below.

Greasemonkey script shows twitter search results in Google search results

Google itself highlighted the importance of travel regions and tourism operators making effective use of the Twitter platform on its blog post:

“The next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.”

Impact of these Twitter announcements from Google and Microsoft:

  • The Here and Now Web (Web 3.0) is here. Real time search results and location relevant search results will take on greater importance.
  • Twitter will Grow in adoption as tweets get greater visibility beyond the Twitterverse.
  • A new era of search engine innovation will come about as engineers figure out how to identify relevant tweets from spam.
  • With access to Twitter search results, Google and Microsoft will need to rethink their search result algorithyms and determine how much relative importance to give to tweets.

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