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Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

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Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#1
I am a bit fuzzy here, but I recall Google having a deal with Twitter and access to the firehose.

I recall finding all kinds of specific tweets, by searching "string," etc.

This does not seem to be the case today.

This is important because you may be used to relying on Google searches to be exhaustive, and include tweets. Now it seems you have to go to twitter.com as well.

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#2
Some other interesting things I've noticed is counters are often wrong, sometimes even with insane values such as -1. Replies missing from retweet views, missing search results, people have reported that replies sometimes don't work or never appear.

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#5
post #3

They shouldn't index stuff with a login or pay wall anyway, or should put it in a separate tab of the results or something (that is, other than in countries where they were forced to).

One good change that happened on Twitter recently is that the login nagscreen now has a close-button.

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#6
post #3

They shouldn't index stuff with a login or pay wall anyway, or should put it in a separate tab of the results or something (that is, other than in countries where they were forced to).

But tweets are on the public web without login.

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#7

Some other interesting things I've noticed is counters are often wrong, sometimes even with insane values such as -1. Replies missing from retweet views, missing search results, people have reported that replies sometimes don't work or never appear.

> counters are often wrong,

I heard about "optimistic rendering"

-1 does seem bad. Reddit has fluctuating numbers I thought it was to fight bots or maybe using the eventually correct type db.

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#9
post #3

They shouldn't index stuff with a login or pay wall anyway, or should put it in a separate tab of the results or something (that is, other than in countries where they were forced to).

Part of my job involves investigating stuff that's often behind a paywall, but the paywall is leaky enough that Google Search displays snippets of what I'm looking for in the results. So I'm often grateful to see these paywalled results come back because it means I've hit paydirt, and if Google weren't indexing the snippets, I would have no visibility into this stuff, and it'd be a huge hindrance to me.

Re: Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google

#10
post #3

They shouldn't index stuff with a login or pay wall anyway, or should put it in a separate tab of the results or something (that is, other than in countries where they were forced to).

Agreed but Twitter isn't a paywall.

Not yet.
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