ter blocked Google Search, not just unregistered users.
Google Search has removed over half from the Google Search Index in the last few days. This was after Twitter on Friday afternoon added to only display tweets for signed-in or registered users. Also, the throttle going on right now at Twitter is not helping.
When I last checked, it appears that Google has reduced the number of tweets index by Twitter from 471,000,000 to 180,000,000. This is a 62% decrease in Google’s index saturation of Twitter.com.
Index count dropping. On Friday, just a few hours after Twitter banned unregistered users, I captured a screenshot from Google Search for Twitter. We all know that Google site commands are not accurate. However, the trend in indexed URLs shows a clear downward trend.
This screenshot shows 471,000,000 results from Twitter’s index in Google:
I used the same command before writing this article and now I see 180,000,000 results in Google index from Twitter.com.
Do you not trust the site command? Glenn Gabe posted a screenshot of Semrush on Twitter, which shows Twitter’s visibility in Google Search dropping:
Firehose. Google Search still shows new tweets in Google Search. Google has had a long-standing agreement with Twitter to use its firehose. This is why you may still see Twitter’s carousel when doing some Google Searches.
This is how it can look:
Old tweets. Old tweets are slowly disappearing from the Google core web search index. This means that Twitter will have less visibility in Google Search. It also means less access for journalists and searchers to find content on Twitter, and overall I think less advertising impressions.
Why we care. This could affect a brand if it relies heavily on Twitter, and on the visibility of those tweets in Google Search. This is especially true if these tweets are older. Some older tweets, which may have been ranked highly in Google Search before, may not be ranking as well now.
It’s unclear whether Twitter will reverse this decision, or use for content that is paywalled. This should allow the content to be indexed by Google Search.
Twitter is currently a mess for many different reasons.
The Search Engine Land article Twitter blocked Google Search, not just unregistered users.