A question that has been hovering in my mind, and probably many others, since Google’s Realtime Search was launched is just how realtime it is. Obviously Google’s real-time folks are even more interested in the answer than I am and, according to Matt Cutts, here is what they found out after the Haiti earthquake:
Realtime search triggered in under two minutes from the earthquake happening and within a minute of the first tweets appearing.
Not bad. Apparently though for some people it took as much as six minutes for the realtime search to reflect the news. Gasp! That’s so long! Seriously though, I still find myself sometimes amazed at how far search technology (and technology in general) has gone. Before we had to wait hours to get live news from TV crews or via the radio but now all that one has to do is wait for tweets or do real-time search.
Google was pretty happy to give themselves a pat at the back, though of course Twitter is still the ultimate when it comes to real-time news. My point though is not to praise Google and Twitter but to emphasize the importance of posting things ASAP.
With the arrival of real-time search, freshness of results have become even more important, and REGULAR FRESH results even more so. If you want to have more opportunity to be searchable then post on current newsmakers and post them as soon as they happen.
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