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Google and Twitter in Cahoooots

March 24th, 2009 · by David Bradley >> 5 Comments

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twitter-googleThere has been a lot of talk recently about how Twitter is going to replace Google, that’s very unlikely ever to happen, but changes are afoot on both sites that could have a significant impact on users of both services that are almost coincident:

Twitter has finally done a deal to monetize, adding little widgety ads in the sidebar.

Google has started ranking twitter search pages.

Twitter has changed the way page titles display so that they are more search engine (Google) friendly. Reported on TechCrunch.

Google seems to be updating its algorithm and/or SERPs as I’m seeing very, very old entries for some of my sites ranking at the top but looking like they’re from ancient cached pages. More worrying though is that sporadically I’m seeing my sciencebase twitter page outranking my sciencebase site. It doesn’t seem to be permanent and varies from data center to data center, so will be different depending on from where in the world you search for sciencebase.

I’m not getting all conspiracy theorist about this, but there are some big coincidences here. Perhaps Google got wind of the Twitter changes before they happened and started battening down the hatches. Alternatively, Twitter maybe heard in advance that Google would start indexing its searches and so thought it was a good time to add an ad model. Or, they are both in cahoots to take over the world and squeeze every last drop of link juice from your web bones. Muhahahahahahaaaaaaggh!!!!!!

5 responses so far ↓

  • Valentin // Mar 25, 2009 at 6:59 am

    Interesting sum up of articles and opinions about it. However, this twitter-google battle thing seems to be more a word of mouth’s…like the blogosphere well knows how to trigger. One thing that is sure: twitter is changing its model and looking for business opportunities (at last!). To be continued

  • David Bradley // Mar 25, 2009 at 7:14 am

    Valentin, I don’t think there’s any word of mouth about it, I was simply speculating that changes are afoot in both camps and was hinting that they might somehow be related.

  • Valentin // Mar 25, 2009 at 8:21 am

    Fair enough.
    I was saying “word of mouth” for the the “twitter being the new google” discussion those days. Well, word of mouth not really, I think “buzz” would be more appropriate.

  • David Bradley // Mar 25, 2009 at 8:40 am

    Thanks for following up, sorry if I sounded critical, I’d just been listening to BBC Radio4 Today show, always puts me in a critical frame of mind given the garbage they talk sometimes!

    I know what you mean, there’s a definite over-buzz about twitter and google, but I don’t think any other blogger had put together recent activities at both in the same context in such a ludicrously speculative manner as I.

  • Tyler // Mar 28, 2009 at 7:32 pm

    Oh no!! In the book 1984 there were 3 dominant superpowers of the world.

    Google, Twitter, Facebook – coincidence?

    (I don’t think MySpace is cool enough anymore to make the cut)

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