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Tweets To Appear In Google Search Results 91

Posted by Soulskill from the social-Social-SOCIAL! dept.
mpicpp writes with news that Google will now begin showing tweets alongside search results. Mobile users searching via the Android/iOS apps or through the browser will start seeing the tweets immediately, while the desktop version is "coming shortly." The tweets will only be available for the searches in English to start, but Twitter says they'll be adding more languages soon.
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Tweets To Appear In Google Search Results More

Tweets To Appear In Google Search Results

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  • OK, but seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by richy freeway ( 623503 ) on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @02:18AM (#49733365)

    How do I turn this off?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Use Bing.

      I think Microsoft finally found a way to beat Google at search, and all it took was Google doing something mindnumbingly stupid like think anyone would care to search tweets.

      • Twitter is junk (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Emotive and smug one liners at best. No serious discussion on any topic is possible. The closest you get is oft out of context quotes under stoic photos of someone staring off into space. Twitter has its place, but not for anyone searching for actual information. You fail, Google.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Google used to show tweets in search results. About three or four years ago. Twitter shut them down. I'm guessing Twitter's star is fading and they want the increased exposure again.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Won't work. Bing scrapes Google.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sycodon ( 149926 )

        Bing's Porn searching capabilities already far outshine Google.

      • I believe Bing returns tweets as well... three per search, if I'm not mistaken.

    • Re:OK, but seriously... (Score:5, Informative)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @03:14AM (#49733609)

      How do I turn this off?

      instructions are here [duckduckgo.com].

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chihowa ( 366380 )

        As someone who uses DuckDuckGo, I have to point out that that's a misleading suggestion. If other engines start doing this, it may well end up in DDG as well.

        DDG relies heavily on the indices of others and many of the crappy trends in modern search engines are filtering into DDG. Search terms are replaced by synonyms and common misspellings, all searches seem to be boolean OR searches and terms are dropped without any notice at all, etc. More than that, any dissatisfaction with the results is dismissed and

        • Honestly, if it weren't for the extremely addictive bang searches (holy shit are those awesome), I'd probably ditch DDG.

          It's like the old Google "I'm feeling lucky" option, but ramped up to 11. I love using ! searches on DuckDuckGo.

          I know about the !g, !a, etc. as well, although I rarely have to use those. But, man, just being able to type something like "Mike Trout Fangraphs !" and get taken right to that player page is absurdly useful.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fisted ( 2295862 )

      -twitter -tweet

      • -twitter -tweet

        Even if i think that it is seriously problematic to include "twitter/tweets" in searches, i understand that more sources available to search is usually not a bad thing; BUT i have serious problems with excluding terms in Google, i.e., this "-" thing does not always work (i can even claim that "often does not work") - and it (as the other logic operators) used to work always for me in the pre-Google era...

        Actually this is my major criticism for Google: i want my logic operators back.

        • -twitter -tweet

          Even if i think that it is seriously problematic to include "twitter/tweets" in searches, i understand that more sources available to search is usually not a bad thing; BUT i have serious problems with excluding terms in Google, i.e., this "-" thing does not always work (i can even claim that "often does not work") - and it (as the other logic operators) used to work always for me in the pre-Google era...

          Actually this is my major criticism for Google: i want my logic operators back.

          Another Slashdot user pointed this out to me:

          On your search results, go Search tools->All Results->Verbatim.

          I like the search engine "StartPage" (Google results minus the tracking) but browsers seem to be getting broken as far as adding custom search engines.
          https://startpage.com/ [startpage.com]

          • -twitter -tweet

            Even if i think that it is seriously problematic to include "twitter/tweets" in searches, i understand that more sources available to search is usually not a bad thing; BUT i have serious problems with excluding terms in Google, i.e., this "-" thing does not always work (i can even claim that "often does not work") - and it (as the other logic operators) used to work always for me in the pre-Google era...

            Actually this is my major criticism for Google: i want my logic operators back.

            Another Slashdot user pointed this out to me:

            On your search results, go Search tools->All Results->Verbatim.

            Yes, verbatim is an o.k. filter, BUT: it is still just a filter (which is actually a "don't use some other mode" setting), i have to apply it every time i want exclusive results, it can't be used from any external search input fields, it "gets lost" (even for my current search term(s)) after i apply other filters (e.g., from Greek to English - something i do often because i am Greek), plus... i forget about it all the time!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fisted ( 2295862 )

          I pretty much miss the + operator, but in my experience, - still works. Can you give an example of where it does not?

          • I pretty much miss the + operator, but in my experience, - still works. Can you give an example of where it does not?

            My criticism was basically for all operators; you are right, the "-" operators still works (better than any other), but not always (e.g., some times, when combined with other operators, like the new semi-"+" double quotes, and/or in the verbatim mode [slashdot.org])

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Gizan ( 3984275 )
          If you put the subtracted word/phrase in quotes it still works. Instead of -Alpha type -"alpha"

          • If you put the subtracted word/phrase in quotes it still works. Instead of -Alpha type -"alpha"

            Yes, you are correct - actually this is what i do if i want to make sure my subtracted word (not just phrase) will be... subtracted... most of the times!

    • Use DuckDuckGo...I've found it to be really good.

  • I dont get why... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shione ( 666388 ) on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @02:29AM (#49733423) Journal

    Companies like Google do this to legitimize another company's business. I've been using the internet for quite some time now and I've seen loads of companies/websites come and go. But with all this integration of facebook/twitter/youtube/linkedin shit into apps and other websites, it makes me wonder what happens when those sites go out of fashion (out of fad). Or is the internet mature enough now that websites/comanies have stopped coming and going.

    Heck, even Slashdot participates in this with those 4 symbols near the article summary.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They're trying to integrate themselves so far that they can't go out of fashion.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        They're trying to integrate themselves so far that they can't go out of fashion.

        This.

        The big players band together and attempt to squash the little ones out of existence. Why? Because it benefits them in the long run to only compete with what they know, it hurts them all if a new player comes in and usurps their spot at the top.

        Sounds like tribal warfare you say? Well no shit, human nature hasn't changed. Free market capitalism is still based on competition- the idea that two people competing with each other can come up with innovative ideas that drive progress forward.

        The difference

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mwvdlee ( 775178 )

      Just look at what happened when MySpace got out of fashion.
      Some other site(s) takes over and the world just keeps on spinning like nothing happened, because nothing did.

      Any developer worth his salt has neatly modularized the social media code, fully expecting their own code to outlast atleast some of the currently popular social media sites.

    • Perhaps the likes of uBlock will make a filter that makes all this go away?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xvan ( 2935999 )
      For a lot of people internet = facebook.

      Google's business model biggest enemy is Facebook because it's a closed.
      That means there is a huge chunk of the internet that can't be indexed, and lots of eyeballs that won't ever be theirs.

      Promoting "open" social networking is good for them.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        For a lot of people internet = facebook.

        We should treat these people the same way we treat Windows users who think that the icon on their desktop, the one with the white lowercase e on a blue background is the internet.

    • If you want to know something that's happening right now, you go search Twitter. If you just want to read articles written about something that happened yesterday, you search Google.

      Google hates "you go search NotGoogle". Their benefit is obvious - they sell ads for the same searches.

      They should have done this five years ago - the old nimble Google of 2001 would have quickly indexed Twitter and Facebook, and every other silo of information. It's only Big Corporate Google that can't acknowledge another so

    • Companies don't "come and go" quite as rapidly as they did in the early days. Facebook has already been around for over a decade, and Twitter is going on 9 years. That's ancient compared to the lifespan of Pets.com or other dot bombs, and the userbases are orders of magnitude larger.

      Google isn't legitimizing Twitter -- in fact, they returned Twitter results for a while a few years ago until Twitter cut them off. This isn't a new feature, it's a return of an old feature (or bug).

    • Very good observation and question.

      I'm pretty sure it's all in the revenue stream.

      You and I know that the Internet belongs to the advertisers.

      Those bolt-on sites you mention are covered in advertising goo.

  • Great news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @02:56AM (#49733533) Journal
    something to shorten peoples short attention spans even more.

    • something to shorten peoples short attention spans even more.

      Hey! I'll have you know my attention span is very

  • Qwant (Score:3)

    by lorinc ( 2470890 ) on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @03:23AM (#49733659) Homepage Journal

    I think Qwant ( https://www.qwant.com/ [qwant.com] ) does it already for ages.

    • Their initial page load is only about ten times as long as Google. I can't imagine why I've never heard of them before, and expect to never hear of them again.

  • sad if it's true, but G is known for their two fetishes: user experience, tempered/trumped by making money. therefore twitting our search results is probably a sad joke.

  • I have come to the conclusion that a way to specify search criteria should now prominently be featured on that Google search page.

    I am aware that I can specify these criteria after a search has been performed. What I need is to be accorded a chance NOT to see results I am not interested in (like tweets), at all.

  • Again? (Score:5, Informative)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @04:50AM (#49733925) Homepage

    Am I the only one that seems to remember that GOOGLE ALREADY HAD THIS FEATURE years ago. Back in the earlier days of Buzz, your Buzz account could be connected to a Twitter account. Google would pull friend's tweets on a particular topic, and show them intermixed with search results. This was just another one of the brazzilion tweeks Google has added/removed/fuckedwith/whoknowswhatelse over the years, and I'm quite honestly surprised to see it make a comeback.

    • They use to have a whole search category for tweets...
    • I remember this too. The Google-Twitter collaboration was discontinued in 2011 - it was never explicitly stated why but the general impression was that Twitter wanted users to come to their site & apps to search for content. Now that they're buddying up to Google again it makes me wonder if they're seeing a drop off in user engagement.

  • On the one hand ... (Score:3)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @05:54AM (#49734119) Journal
    ... yeah, bleah. On the other hand, whole "news" stories are written about various clowns' reactions on Twitter.

  • Please don't! (Score:3)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @07:29AM (#49734397)

    Please no! When I want to search newsgroup contents, I'll tell them so, ditto for tweets.

    The search results are already pretty much useless right now, because they show me what they 'think' I might mean instead of what I actually typed in the field.

    I have to enclose every fucking word between quotes, otherwise they get ignored an they show me Kardashian or Rihanna crap.

  • At least, assuming these tweets are ranked appropriately.

    Down near the bottom, with the ad spammers.

    But really... what the fuck, Google? The most "useful" kinds of tweets are the ones who reference the authoritative material that you'd want to see instead of any tweet about it. As a means to add to the page rank of good (i.e. referenced) pages tweets might be valuable, but otherwise twitter activity is pretty much the definition of irrelevant.

  • Aren't we a little fast on the hate switch? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Eloking ( 877834 ) on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @08:06AM (#49734593)

    I get that most people here doesn't give a damn about the blue bird, but everyone is reacting like we're going to have our search filled with tweet.

    I've looked up in my history for all the latest google search I did in the last week and I hardly see how most (any) of them would give me tweet result ("Matlab plotyy axis scale"?).

    On the other hand, let's say that I'm a 13 years old girls who's googling the latest gossip about Taylor Swift, I get that, in some cases, tweet could become an insightful result.

    I say let's give it a chance and see how it goes. Furthermore, Google Search have always been "customizable" and I'm sure us folk would have no problem deactivating tweets from a search (-youtube anyone?).

    • Google is adding gossip that is enhancing the user experience for 13 year old girls on one hand

      ...and making the default experience worse for more serious minded people, since they now have to or some combination thereof to disable junk results

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Eloking ( 877834 )

        Google is adding gossip that is enhancing the user experience for 13 year old girls on one hand ...and making the default experience worse for more serious minded people, since they now have to or some combination thereof to disable junk results

        As I said, the "more serious minded people" will make their search query precise enough to get exactly what they were looking for.

  • I really don't give a damn how many useless pages a search engine can return in 1.344821 seconds. I care about relevance. Google has slowly eroded the relevance of their returned pages either by adding useless content (tweets) or removing useful search modes (e.g. simple regex).

    I'd happily pay a small monthly or annual fee to support a search engine that will return highly relevant pages after a few minutes or even longer if it allows more complicated search and context expressions.

  • I haven't used google in a while just because of their invasive nature. I just tried a search for "Mustang" on google, over half the initial visible results page is ads for me to buy a car. DuckDuckGo, not so much. Sticking with DDG. Google has gone downhill a lot.
  • Man I'm super happy with my decision to start backing away from Google services after that whole G+ integration and real name crap went down. I feel like Google is just going to keep going down hill from here...
  • More clutter to ignore. Will AdBlocker stop these?
  • So, from a tourist perspective, i can see where this could help. You search for Restaurants, and think, OK ill try Italian. You look for a specific restaurant, and it may have a decent rating on something, but a recent tweet could be "just saw a dead mouse in the lobster tank at X restaurant" This is something i would want to see before going to a shitty restaurant.

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