SEO & Twitter Spam

Real time search engines definitely have an appeal to avid searchers like myself yet spam is a tough problem for real time search. If you use Google frequently, you know how stale its search results are. That is a great thing for SEO clients who want continuous exposure, and they do get that continuous exposure. But for searchers, a fresh set of results is nice to see. Google could introduce a random oscillating weighting factor to expose more sites in the top ten results. The reason they don't do that is because stale organic results increases clicks of Adwords ads. So, this brings us to the popularity of sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Redditt.

Social sites offer fresh content and it can be an alternate universe of commentary and connections. These are things you won't find via Google and I don't believe we ever will. Google is obsessed with filtering their results ad nauseum and go into convulsions when one spammer gets their message through. With such tight controls on search results, nothing spontaneous or random ever appears. Social sites search algorithms are very simple and spammers are taking advantage of their inability to discern credible, useful posts from valuable posts. And with millions of tweets and other social postings every day, the volume of noise will get louder for real time search engines.

At some point, Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook will have to add a credibility factor within their algorithm. If their search engines are to become competitive with Google in any respect, they have to create some sort of spam filter and a criteria of ranking useful posts. Certainly, number of followers can help in that regard but a lot of Twitter and Facebook users are gaming the follower count. With the limits imposed, number of followers can't help determine the best. It may help fight off spammers though.

The Profit Motive

The social sites must break even on their costs, and the owners will no doubt want to capitalize on this opportunity. Myspace didn't capitalize on it soon enough and now it looks like Myspace is passe. Since Google has made a fortune in search, why wouldn't Twitter and Facebook want to follow the same path? Real time search is their ticket to the big leagues. And it doesn't look like Google will be a threat, even though Google is making sounds lately about speeding up their search results and providing fresher content. That will never happen. Google needs to show stale results to keep people clicking on those ads. Perhaps Twitter and Facebook will fall into the same for-profit trap. In the meantime, searchers will get to see some unique posts and content that they could not access via Google. That's something to celebrate!

As long as there is a profit motive involved in using Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, or Reddit, they will be plagued with various types of spam. The only way to control spam is to improve the search algorithm and take into account users activity. For instance, if a Twitter account holder is blocked by someone, that might be a response to a request that wasn't relevant indicating a spammer. Considering the number of inbound links to one's Twitter or Facebook account might suggest credibility, as would a keyword count of the user's posts, and keyword count of users who follow that person. That's the creation of "keyword reputation" similar to how Google does it. That would help keep out some of the spam by ensuring those who get seen in the search results are really "into the topic."

The social search engines could develop niche search functions and segment their database. A multi-search function for people, videos, music, movies, restaurants, entertainment, travel, services, medical, jobs, products, companies, and others topics categorized would ensure the search results were more on topic. A number of pundits have suggested that niche search is the way to go.

SEO can Improve Relevancy

SEOs with good intentions can use optimization techniques to increase exposure in Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and all the rest of the social media sites. The key to optimization is relevance. That focus will definitely help real time search engines return better results. SEOs can fashion their posts and get others of similar interests to follow and comment on those posts. Both inbound and outbound links may help in establishing credibility and semantic indexing techniques may help too.

The real time search engines have a tremendous challenge in trying to control spam and generate useful results for users. They won't get many chances to get it right. Users, once burned, will give up and not return.

Do you have any questions or comments? Leave your comment on the Bay Street SEO Blog.

SEO For Real Time Search

People search using a huge array of keywords and this represents the many different angles they view a topic. The topics of interest in social search engines is more focused on people and entertainment and news. The topic will be very specific which is in contrast to common SEO practices which optimize for general popular keywords.

In social media optimization, a great deal of specific content is generated and it's commentary that is personal and generally non-commercial. Blatant sales pitches are despised by users, so references to products and services tends to be general and to provide something useful to the user rather than, for instance, a link to a shopping cart page.

In real time search, it's all about timing, speed, and frequency of publication. Exposure on a massive scale where a published posting gains exposure to millions of people interested in a particular topic obvious has revenue potential.

Real Time Search SEO takes skill and timing and perhaps a deeper involvement with the content itself. An SEO with research and writing skills can help you access this new burgeoning opportunity in search engine optimization.

Real Time Search Engines