Live Blog: Google’s Dylan Casey On How Real Time Is Changing Search

Next up at TWTRCON, where I’m at today, an honest-to-goodness search panel! Moderator David Berkowitz of 360i will be interviewing Dylan Casey, Search Product Manager at Google, about real-time search.Not up to speed about what Google’s been doing with real time search? Might I recommend these background pieces from Search Engine Land:

• Google Launches Real Time Search Results
• Google Real Time Search Now Shows Updates From Facebook Fan Pages
• Google’s Real Time Search Results Gets “Top Links” Section
• Google Adds Images To Real-Time Results
• All The Old Tweets Are Found: Google Launches Twitter Archive Search
• The Twitter Search Revolution: Popular & Promoted Tweets Mature The Service

The session begins shortly, so stay tuned.

David: Why are real time results important for Google consumers?

Dylan: In addition to platforms used to publish, the type of content is important. Blogs were added, now microcontent. What’s significant is not only is it a URL but also has all this meta data, signals, that help us understand what the content is or means. Where does the content come from, what’s it associated with. That’s what makes the content relevant for Google and consumers.

David: SEO issues?

Dylan: Something everyone is concerned about, especially brand owners. Continue to publish good content. Focus on the frequency and quality. It still matters because way we deliver this type of content in our search results is no different than the way we deliver the other content.

Some nuances, though. Look at how content is being engaged with, interacted with [IE, ya gettin’ retweeted?]

Is it true that content has finite shelf live? Not really since Google has replay feature now (see second to last link in my list above).

David: Does any of what happens in natural results led to changes in the paid results.

Dylan: No connection between paid and unpaid. But can hypothesize might be good for people to think of how ads might interact with real time content or be right answer.

David: Facebook is a big player in real time space. How does that impact what’s happening on the real time side as it becomes more open.

Dylan: The more open the web is the better, not just for Google but for everyone. Flip side as the content previously thought of as private, need to be increasingly careful on how we manage it [see Openbook: See What People On Facebook Share To The World].

Google spends a lot of time on how they react if a user later marks an account private. Do you go back to delete it? Do they know how to. One question with the Twitter archive search. What if you want to delete a tweet that Google will list but that Twitter itself won’t display, because of its display limits. You can find it on Google and click back to Twitter to remove it.

David on dealing with real time news.

Dylan: Plenty of examples in press on how important Google sees journalism is. Don’t think there’s a time they’ll decide something’s not that important.

David: But you have to prioritize something, there’s not enough room on the page. Is real time search getting part of the Google News mix.

Dylan: Absolutely, when you get News results in Google Universal Search as a OneBox, often you get now Real Time results also

Like when Scarlett got kissed in the MTV music awards, peopel might be searching for that as it happens, and you want it right when it happened and the reaction too.

David: What’s happening with Google Buzz and Google Wave.

Dylan: How important is Buzz? I think it’s really important, especially ability to have conversations around the content. We not only have the actual buzz but the comments that follow. Google thinks Buzz is equally important to other platforms out there.

As for Wave, there was time when people said AIMme or MSNme, but not said so much over time. Things evolve. People are still figuring things out, and that’s true of Wave.

David: What’s coming in real time search.

Dylan: Spent a lot of time figuring out when to trigger it on the main results. Get a lot of feedback of when people expected to get it and didn’t and the opposite. “So we struggle back and forth with that. I can promise you that will improve.”

As for change with Caffeine (see Google’s New Indexing Infrastructure “Caffeine” Now Live), it was interesting catalyst over what’s the difference between that and real time content.

He was never happy with the name “real time search results” as he felt it overpromised but hopes one of the benefits is not only people will think they can come to Google and get the right answer if they hear an explosion or see a rally but also it will change the way that people will publish. That if I’m making this [real time] content available, it will be useful.

Audience Question (that I couldn’t hear but here’s the answer)

Dylan: We’re working on Twitter to get the rest of that (must be that Google’s Twitter archive search only goes back a few months at the moment — which is much more than Twitter itself does but still not as far back as Twitter can go).

Dylan: We’re working on Twitter to get the rest of that (must be that Google’s Twitter archive search only goes back a few months at the moment — which is much more than Twitter itself does but still not as far back as Twitter can go).

Another question hard to hear…

Dylan: We listen to a variety of signal, pay attention to volume, content over time. One thing when launched real time search, added a trends list, “Hot Topics” [see first link I gave in my list], the short answer is yes and the long answer is excited about the trends possibility from this content stream.

Question: More about how the algorithm works.

Dylan: Absolutely. Everyone got a pen? Laughs all around. Speaking broadly, people have understanding of how Google ranks web pages [for those who don’t, the context and quality of links pointing at page is a key factor].

With real time, he has the ability to see how often things are retweeted in a short period of time. Spend a lot of time talking to people and having engineers play with thing. Ultimately will work to innovate. It’s just like search. We haven’t solved it yet.

Which wasn’t really an answer, but the articles above will help. Promise. Look up there.

And that’s the end of the session.

About The Author

Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, MarTech Today and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.