Tweets To Appear In Google Search Results 91
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.
OK, but seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
How do I turn this off?
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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)
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:Twitter is junk (Score:4, Funny)
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Actually, has there been any contest where the goal is to write the most useful program that can be stored in a tweet? (Useful is defined as "non-trivial", so hello world doesn't count).
Bonus points if you start your tweet with the shebang and thus limit the number of available characters.
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Actually, has there been any contest where the goal is to write the most useful program that can be stored in a tweet?
Yes [boingboing.net], sort of
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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.
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Won't work. Bing scrapes Google.
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Bing's Porn searching capabilities already far outshine Google.
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Re:OK, but seriously... (Score:5, Informative)
How do I turn this off?
instructions are here [duckduckgo.com].
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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
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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.
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-twitter -tweet
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-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.
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-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]
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-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!
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I pretty much miss the + operator, but in my experience, - still works. Can you give an example of where it does not?
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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])
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Add "&tbs=li:1" to your keyword search string. For example:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&tbs=li:1
That will make it always use verbatim mode when you use keyword searching.
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Add "&tbs=li:1" to your keyword search string. For example:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%s&tbs=li:1
That will make it always use verbatim mode when you use keyword searching.
IT WORKS! [google.com]
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I just noticed that I replied to the wrong post. I meant to respond to your previous post, but at least you got the info.
And happy to help. Google can be aggravating with how often they move things around and limit or hide functionality.
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You can add a Verbatim engine to the Chrome Selection Search extension, [google.com] too.
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You can add a Verbatim engine to the Chrome Selection Search extension, [google.com] too.
Thank you Sir - i don't use Chrome, but it is nice to know that i am not the only stupid person whining about that.
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You get new engines for Selection Search via the Mycroft Project [mycroftproject.com], those can be used with Firefox's OpenSearch and Sherlock plugins, and probably with other browsers, too.
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You get new engines for Selection Search via the Mycroft Project [mycroftproject.com], those can be used with Firefox's OpenSearch and Sherlock plugins, and probably with other browsers, too.
Yes, i use Firefox, and you are very helpful Sir!
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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!
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I dont get why... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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They're trying to integrate themselves so far that they can't go out of fashion.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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).
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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.
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How is that different from Google indexing the dumb comments you make on Slashdot?
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Holy shit!
https://www.google.nl/search?q... [google.nl]
Re:Oh hell no... (Score:5, Interesting)
From the context of the rest of the conversation I can almost always figure out what a stupid Slashdot comment meant.
OTOH, tweets are virtually impossible for me to parse, because everyone's using lots of pronouns to stay under 140 characters, and "twitter threads" really don't show me "ok this guy was responding to this tweet, which was a response to that tweet, which was a response to something that chick said, so the 'she' in this last tweet is probably that chick..."
For example, every time I go to Fivethirtyeight.com there's a list of tweets the Fivethirtyeight authors are making. I can generally figure out what half of them mean. Today it's up to 3/4 or so, because Enten just sent out a barrage of 6 on the same topic and one of them said "this is the topic I am talking about," rather then the twitter-user's traditional reliance on everyone knowing precisely what they're talking about right now, and therefore not including any context becsides a timestamp and the twitter handles of the people they're interacting with.
This will probably be incredibly useful for a small set of users (ie: twitter addicts who get the lingo; marketers figuring out everything said about their boss, etc.) and be completely useless for damn near anyone else.
Great news (Score:5, Insightful)
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something to shorten peoples short attention spans even more.
Hey! I'll have you know my attention span is very
Qwant (Score:3)
I think Qwant ( https://www.qwant.com/ [qwant.com] ) does it already for ages.
Wow (Score:2)
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.
april fool's (Score:2)
Search criteria should now feature prominently (Score:2)
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)
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.
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On the one hand ... (Score:3)
Perhaps a stupid question, but... (Score:2)
Why is this useful?
Please don't! (Score:3)
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.
Sounds great! (Score:2)
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)
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?).
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Are you allowed to be using your work computer at Google to post on Slashdot?...
How I would love if it was the case...(work computer at Google....sigh)
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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.
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It's freaking Google. There's no way you searched for "Matlab plotyy axis scale" and got any useful result. (OK, in this case, there are useful results, but for many technical but less popular searches my point hold true.)
Typically, you'd need to search for ""Matlab" "plotyy" "axis" "scale"". Knowing Google, if they couldn't find any tweets relevant to your search, your results would have tweets containing any of your search terms. It's better to return twenty million irrelevant results than admit that there are none or very few.
If you search is "Matlab" only, of course I may get some Tweet result, but I certainly don't see any coming on top of the result of mathworks's website or wikipedia's. After all, part of the search result are the popularity of it. And I also doubt any tweet would be popular enough to reach the top10 unless Elon Musk tweet that "Matlab is the first requirement for a job at Tesla or SpaceX" or Obama tweet that "Enter this function in Matlab to draw a cute cat hidden in a pair of boobs". And in those cases, th
Wrong direction (Score:2)
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.
It is sad (Score:2)
Google (Score:1)
Will AdBlocker stop these? (Score:1)
It could work? (Score:1)