I was in the shower this morning, considering the impact that Twitter and Facebook have had on Google’s search results. After reading Rands test results from Twitter links versus traditional text links in ranking pages within the Google search results, it is clear that Google is placing significant weight on links from Twitter and Facebook. Based upon this information, one would assume that if Facebook and Twitter no longer permitted Google-bot access their websites, Google’s algorithm would have to be seriously adjusted. It would probably end up in pushing Google search results to displaying only yesterday’s news and information, instead of real-time search results currently based upon the linking patterns Google-bot gets from Twitter and Facebook.
I was just reading a blog post on searchengineland about Twitter being acquired by someone, whether it be Google, Microsoft or Facebook. I find this concept interesting: Whomever buys Twitter will have the most updated real-time content online. I believe that the acquisition of Twitter must be made by Microsoft. This would give Microsoft its first leg up on Google in search. Microsoft could probably license the access to Twitter to Google for hundreds of millions of dollars.
The facts are quite simple that without Twitter and Facebook links, Google’s sort of screwed. Unfortunately Google’s recent behavior has created a bit of industry anger towards its online business practices. I think this is why Groupon did not sell to Google.
I wanted to mention that this blog post was written with the assistance of NaturallySpeaking by Dragon. If you have hesitated in using speech-recognition software, I would say now is the time to give it a try. I think that using this software will make it much easier for me to blog from this point forward.
While I’m getting NaturallySpeaking a plug, I may as well mention the really really cool viral marketing tool they’ve built on their website. It’s called Fingers of Fire.
