Twitter’s new rate limits severely affect the indexing and display of tweets on Google’s search engine, thereby limiting the reach of information shared on the microblogging site.
Google Search has removed more than half its indexed URLs from Twitter over the past few days, according to Web search industry outlet Search Engine Land.
on July 3 it noted The number of tweets indexed by Google fell by more than 60%, from 471 million to 180 million.
On July 4, The Verge shared “We are aware that our ability to crawl Twitter.com has been limited, affecting our ability to display Tweets and pages from the site in search results,” said a statement from a Google spokesperson.
Search engine optimization consultant Glen Gabe noted a drop in search visibility from Twitter accounts. “This is based on Google not being able to crawl those URLs (due to Twitter redirecting non-logged-in users),” he explained.
As @rustybrick As of this AM, Tweets are being dropped from the SERPs based on the latest changes on the platform. Search visibility is declining, and spot-checking those rankings reveals that those Tweets or Twitter accounts are no longer ranking: pic.twitter.com/ggH6QVTRUw
— Glen Gabe (@glenngabe) 3 July 2023
Technologist Barry Schwartz also did some testing, noting a similar drop in indexed tweets.
Google has removed over 50% of indexed URLs from Twitter since Friday (I know, it’s a site command and not so precise…) after Twitter blocked signed-out users from seeing tweets. pic.twitter.com/AoyfbBI0YU
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) 3 July 2023
When tested by Cointelegraph, Google returned approximately 665 million results for a search for “site:twitter.com”, so this figure appears to be dynamic and dependent on Google’s crawlers.
On July 2, Twitter executive chairman Elon Musk announced that the company would controversially impose a temporary limit on the number of posts users are allowed to read daily, citing “extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation”.
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The move has been largely criticized by the crypto community, which relies heavily on Twitter for communication and information sharing. Lower tweet visibility on Google will also reduce the amount of crypto-related content coming from Twitter.
Decentralized Twitter rival Mastodon has seen a surge in activity recently, with an increase in active users since Twitter was banned from reading.
A Twitter rival to Meta-owned Instagram called Threads is also set to launch this week.
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