Tweet Rank

At Technology Review today is the first article I have seen discussing elements of Google’s Real Time Search. The article features a surprisingly candid interview with Google Fellow and Real Time Search development lead Amit Singhal.

Not surprisingly tweets are ranked by the reputation of the Tweeter, as judged by their “reputed followers.” Long story short, the better quality your followers, the higher your rank. It is analogous to Page Rank. Surprisingly disliked by the algorithm – hashtags, so avoid them.

Why should a marketing person care? As “Real Time Search” is increasingly folded into “Universal Search” (just like News, Blogs, Products, Images, etc.) Twitter (and soon Facebook) updates represent a new opportunity to get your content highly ranked at the major search engines. SimpleFeed customers are preparing for this future by building their Fan/Follower base and publishing their content into their social sites to connect with customers and rank in Real Time Search results.