Twitter and Google deal will put tweets straight into search results

Google used to have to crawl Twitter to see what had been posted — but now the search engine will be plugged straight in to the ‘firehose’ of tweets

Twitter's searchable archive now extends all the way to 2006, when it was founded. Source: Getty Images (Getty Images)

A new arrangement between Twitter and Google will see tweets go straight into search results.

It will mean that tweets will be fed into Google as they’re posted, rather than Google having to send robots to crawl over the social network as it does with other sites. Twitter will allow Google to plug straight into the “firehose”, as the company refers to the constant stream of 140-character updates that come out of the site.

Twitter and Google engineers are already working to bring the two together, according to Bloomberg.

The two companies had a similar deal between 2009 and 2011. But it expired and Twitter at the time didn’t renew it, reportedly so that they could retain more control over the content.

The company hopes that the new feature will make Twitter more visible to people who don’t spend time on the site. In that way, it is similar to its announcement this week that promoted tweets will be able to appear everywhere.

Both are part of a range of new features announced in the run-up to Twitter’s quarterly results this evening.