Social search is closer than we think – Twitter to enter Google’s search results

It was confirmed yesterday, both by the NYtimes and Search Engine Land, that Google will be incorporating tweets into search results sometime in the coming weeks. Is this finally the confirmation that SEO and social media are converging? Or is this news simply another stepping stone along the path to a socially integrated real time web experience?

The NYTimes quoted Twitter’s chief executive, Evan Williams, on the deals recently launched with Google and Microsoft, citing that Twitter is in fact open to additional partnerships over the coming months. Williams noted that the goal of the deals is not to make the technology exclusive to one application over another – rather, the goal is to provide an opportunity to increase the integration of Twitter as a means of catalyzing the growth of their network.

“A core of our philosophy has always been that Twitter is a distributed network and there’s multiple in points and out points that serve different users and different uses.”                                                                         – Evan Williams as quoted in the NYTimes October 21, 2009

Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of search engine land, was one of the first in the search community to experience the technology first hand:

“…when I saw it last month, I joked on Twitter that I had a Scoblesque tear running down my cheek. OK, it wasn’t THAT awesome. But it was pretty impressive. I don’t see a lot of things that make me go “wow,” that’s useful. This did. – Danny Sullivan -October 21, 2009″

Danny explored social search evolution in detail last year, and has cataloged improvements as well as faults in search technology since the search industry started to emerge as a player in corporate society. It’s fascinating to see the legacy of search articulated through his poignant and eloquently facetious depiction of the search engine world. I’m very curious to read what he felt, specifically, was so impressive and helpful about twitter search technology.

For the SEO community, the arrival of twitter updates in Google search results practically confirms that a convergent approach to leveraging search engines for traffic will be absolutely necessary. Although social media has been met with skepticism in the past, and i certainly still have my reservations, there’s no doubt the real time web is right around the corner – that means social media adaptation will be mission critical in crafting enterprise level SEO campaigns in 2010.

IMHO, the most significant piece of information to emerge from this announcement is a subtle quote of tremendous importance from Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice President for search and user experience.  The NYtimes quoted Mayer as saying that “Twitter’s trove of real time data would ‘improve our relevance, our comprehensiveness and our quality.”

And as we know…Google is all about relevance and quality these days.  How mindless babble and countless bitly URLs equals relevance…i don’t know…but I suppose we’ll all find out before the end of the year. Be sure to check out Mayer’s demo of the new technology here.