Search Engine Ranking for Tweets: How to Get Ranked

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In the past, there were very few instances in which you would stumble upon real-time search in action, maybe some news-related inquiries.

The new Search Engine Results Page (SERP) interface makes real-time search a part of ANY given search, which makes it a much bigger deal for your search engine ranking traffic generation.

Your social media interactions have just become even more important.

Google and other search engines are now indexing tweets and other status updates from networks like Facebook and Myspace.

So what are their criteria for search engine ranking of tweets?

Not surprisingly, Google was very secretive about its real-time search engine ranking strategy for a while.

Eventually, some light was shed on that by Google’s lead developer of real-time search, Amit Singhal.

1. Reputation and popularity.

Turns out that Google does not judge you by HOW MANY followers you have, but by how REPUTABLE those followers are.

In that respect, driving traffic from Google’s real-time search engine ranking is very similar to its page ranking.

It’s all about the links. More precisely, it’s all about the QUALITY of the links.

“You earn reputation, and them you give reputation,”

says Amit Singhal.

“As high-quality pages link to another page on the Web, the quality of the linked-to page goes up. Likewise, in social media, as established users follow another user, the quality of the followed user goes up as well.”

So essentially, Google ranks tweets using a variation of its page-ranking algorithm. The more reputable links you have going to your content, the higher it ranks in Google.

Similarly, having followers with authority theoretically helps your tweets rank higher in Google real-time search and thus increase your search engine ranking traffic generation.

However, this is not the only factor.

2. Use of hashtags.

If you are big fan of hashtags and you would like to generate traffic from Google real-time search, stop using them.

According to Singhal, that’s a big red flag for lower quality tweets.

Trending topics on Twitter tend to be measured largely by tag popularity and tend to also attract tons of junk tweets.

Thus, use of hashtags can negatively reflect upon your real-time search engine ranking.

3. Context is important too.

Here is another noteworthy excerpt from Singhal’s interview:

Another problem: how, if someone is searching for “Obama,” to sift through White House press tweets and thousands of others to find the most timely and topical information. Google scans tweets to find the “signal in the noise,” he says. Such a “signal” might include a new onslaught of tweets and other blogs that mention “Cambridge police” or “Harry Reid” near mentions of “Obama.” By looking out for such signals, Google is able to furnish real-time hits that contain the freshest subject matter even for very common search terms.

4. Nothing is cut in stone.

As Chris Lake noted in his post at Econsultancy.com:

“We’re watching real time search closely to try to figure out what matters, and what doesn’t, but it’s worth pointing out that it’s very early in the day. As such, this is a braindump of possible ranking factors, rather than anything definitive.” - resource link: http://econsultancy.com/blog/5239-googles-real-time-ranking-factors-for-twitter

So here are some of those possible factors:

• Keywords: tweets loaded with keywords on the front end, as well links with keywords, may outrank tweets without them.
• Recency: will Google pay more attention to accounts with more activity?
• User name: keywords in your user name might also help.
• Age: since age plays a big role in Google search engine ranking, it’s possible that more established Twitter accounts will outrank the newer ones.
• External links: links to @WebTrafficCafe from (reputable) non-social media sites should boost my reputation as far as Google is concerned.
• Tweet Quantity: although the emphasis is on quality and popularity, the quantity may still matter. Makes sense: the more you tweet, the better chance you’ve got to be seen in Google real-time search results.
• Ratios of followed vs follow: may be compared to reciprocal linking. There is not as much value in being followed just because you follow someone; Google might question your true popularity, so a close ratio between the two can raise a red flag.
• Lists: it might also matter in how many lists you appear.

Let me touch very quickly on how Bing ranks tweets (as per WebNewsPro.com).

What it seems to come down to is the number of followers. If someone has a lot of followers, his/her tweets will get ranked higher. If a tweet is exactly the same as other tweets, it will get ranked lower. As simple as that (or maybe too simple).

Wrapping Up.

It’s not like Google is about to reveal to us how they REALLY rank the tweets. Plus, real-time search goes far beyond just tweets.

Still Twitter is a big player, and if we want to bring more traffic to our sites via real-time search, we’d better start paying closer attention to our social media standing.

Your are right: you don’t have to comment or retweet, but would it help if I told you it would be much appreciated?

About the Author: Ana Hoffman is the founder of Traffic Generation Cafe and wants you to know that Thesis + Scribe = SEO Made Simple. Get more from Ana on Facebook.

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