Posts Tagged ‘real-time search’

Why Real Time Search Makes Blogging More Important Than Ever

Monday, April 5th, 2010

As you know, I’m a big proponent of small business blogging. But ever since Google and Bing started indexing real time search results your blog has become more important than ever. Here’s why …

Not only are the search engines indexing tweets – and I think we all know that Twitter is getting the lion’s share of publicity about real time results – but other social media, including blogs, are being included in real time search results as well. There are two aspects to real time search.

  1. SERPs Pages – These appear on the first page of the SERP and represent the latest tweets, blog entries, Facebook updates and other social media content.
  2. Latest Results – Of course, the SERPs pages real time section is all about the latest results, but it also includes other search engine results like news, photos, videos, etc. And for the some searches there are no real time results on the SERP so if you want to see the latest results then you need to click on “Show Options” then on “Latest results”. This is where the latest tweets, blog entries and other social media results will appear in real time.

Of course, if someone is looking just for the latest blog results then after clicking on “Show Options” they can click on “Blogs” and only the blog results will appear, but that’s not a new development.

Thanks to real time search indexing, your blog is more important than ever. If you haven’t started one, now is the time.

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Posted in Blogging for Small Business | 1 Comment »

Do You Know Your TweetRank

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

OK, it’s a trick question. But not really. If you’ve been wondering how Google ranks your tweets in real-time search then there is an interview with a Googler than shed some light on the subject. Amit Singhal says that ranking tweets in real-time search is a lot like PageRank. So I’m looking forward to the day when we’ll all be discussing our TweetRank scores with verve and passion.

It’s interesting that the comparison between ranking tweets and PageRank has been made because PageRank has been likened to a popularity contest, but that’s not accurate. It’s about quality more than anything and ranking tweets is the same. Google appears to be interested in the number of followers a person has and how connected socially – quality – those followers are.

Singhal says it this way:

“You earn reputation, and then you give reputation. If lots of people follow you, and then you follow someone–then even though this [new person] does not have lots of followers,” his tweet is deemed valuable because his followers are themselves followed widely, Singhal says. It is “definitely, definitely” more than a popularity contest, he adds.

So this is incentive then to get on the A-list and be followed by the top bloggers. Rather than simply going for huge numbers of followers, try to find the right followers for you, quality followers with lots of well-connected followers themselves.

I guess that’s a little like PageRank. What do you think?

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Posted in search engines | 5 Comments »

Twitter Still The Hot Date At The Party

Friday, December 11th, 2009

It seems that Yahoo! has decided to integrate Twitter into its search results, following Bing and Google. That pretty much makes the microblogging service the most popular date for the prom. Now, all the major search engines are focusing on delivering real-time content a la Twitter. But will it do any good?

Personally, I think Yahoo! may have the right idea on this one. More than Google and Bing, Yahoo! has decided to make the tweets it shares relevant to the search query. That may be a first. Yahoo! did something more right than its competitors.

Nevertheless, in an industry where relevance is one of the most used and highly reverent concepts, it makes sense. Why toss out a bunch of useless results that have nothing to do with a search query just because they were tweeted five seconds ago? The first time I saw that on Google I thought, “This doesn’t really help me.” Yahoo!s approach helps me. Kudos to Yahoo!

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Posted in search engines | 8 Comments »

Yahoo! Goes Real Time

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

We’ve already announced that Bing and Google have agreements in place with Twitter to provide real-time search results. Now, Yahoo! is toying with real-time search as well.

The thing that strikes me as interesting about the Yahoo! real-time search plan is that it does not include Twitter. It involves OneRiot, a company that has established a reputation as a real-time search engine.

If OneRiot continues to grow and entrench itself as a real real-time search engine that can produce great results on a consistent basis then this will be a feather in the Yahoo! cap. Otherwise, it will end up being like so many other Yahoo! pairings of the past. I wonder if the new era of Yahoo! will look better than its past.

So the battle for dominance in real-time search begins. Who do you think will end up top dog?

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Posted in search engines | No Comments »

Who Will Win The Battle For Real-Time Search?

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

With the race fully on for real-time search we can all wonder who will take the crown. Google has a stake in the outcome. As does Twitter. And Facebook. and Bing. But there is one other newcomer to search who has thrown a hat into the ring and they’re looking pretty good.

In fact, there are several real-time search engines vying for attention. But I recently took a look at OneRiot due to that company receiving a $7 million injection from venture capitalists.

I think it’s entirely feasible that in five years there will be a real-time search engine that dominates the present web in the same way that Google currently dominates the search market overall. And that search engine won’t be Google. It will likely be one of the 11 highlighted by VentureBeat in the above link.

Most of the real-time search engines are heavily weighted toward Twitter searches, but I think that’s too narrow. In order to gain real prominence in the here and now of search, a search engine will have to expand into blogs, social bookmarking services, social networking, and forums. A search engine will have to essentially do what Google does sans the emphasis on links and domain age, or authority. In other words, focus primarily on the latest results and their relevance to a search query with spam filters. So far, I don’t see anyone getting close. But there are some search engines that are getting close to close.

I’d say, at this point, it looks like the strongest contenders for real-time search are OneRiot, mentioned above, and Collecta, which we reviewed earlier in the year and the issues mentioned then seem to be fixed (for the most part). What do you think? Who do you think will emerge as the leader in real-time search?

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Posted in search engines | 12 Comments »