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Check out this article on the official Google Blog:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/rt-google-tweets-and-updates-and-search.html

Tweets within search results because Twitter is doing something that even Google can't do ... provide LIVE search results.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by MktgRob

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flagged an important shift that raises two practical concerns: individual privacy and how brands should adapt. The points from and are both useful starting places; the guidance below clarifies what actually controls discovery and gives quick, actionable steps.

Public vs protected content — what actually matters
Public tweets and any web pages that embed them are discoverable by search engines; protected (private) accounts are not indexed. To stop new tweets from being crawled, enable the account-level protection option in Twitter settings. Bear in mind that content posted while an account was public can remain cached or copied elsewhere (screenshots, embeds, retweets), so deleting a tweet does not instantly erase every copy. Twitter’s help covers protected tweets and what that change does to visibility (Twitter: Protected Tweets). Google’s indexing rules explain how publicly accessible pages get into search results (Google: How Search Works).

Practical steps to protect privacy and to use tweets in SEO

  • Audit account privacy now: protect tweets if you need strict privacy.
  • Search for existing exposure with queries like site:twitter.com yourhandle to find public mentions.
  • Delete unwanted public tweets and check third-party sites that may have embedded them; follow search-engine removal processes where needed.
  • For brands, keep personal and work accounts separate, publish account rules for employees, and treat tweets as discoverable content: put clear branding, keywords and landing-page links in tweets and bios to benefit from any SERP visibility.

Context and caution
As noted, volume matters; social content can influence visibility. As warned, privacy is real—rely on account controls and corporate social-media policy rather than assuming platforms or search engines will honor informal expectations. Platforms and partnerships change over time, so make privacy settings and monitoring part of the standard workflow.

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Member Avatar for MktgRob

I heard they were thinking about doing this a few months ago but there were no definite plans as to when. As they just passed 5 billion tweets, 4 billion in the last calendar year, it is kind of hard for Google to ignore them.

Member Avatar for InsightsDigital

Thanks for sharing that link. Perhaps I am being Devil's advocate, but this up a concern about privacy. It seems that now a days, users forget how precious their privacy can be. Thus, with their updates being in "live" mode, their employers can track them if the user is not "working". What do you think?

Member Avatar for MktgRob

Thanks for sharing that link. Perhaps I am being Devil's advocate, but this up a concern about privacy. It seems that now a days, users forget how precious their privacy can be. Thus, with their updates being in "live" mode, their employers can track them if the user is not "working". What do you think?

Back when they were originally talking about this it was in terms of including only the top tweeters (Ashton Kutcher et al) but if it is all tweets I agree with InsightsDigital that there are privacy issues for people who are tweeting for non-job related reasons. I imagine an opt-out or opt-in is in the offing.

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