Google gives real-time search its own page

Google is digging deeper into real-time search, with a new search page that displays only results from timely sources, like updates from Twitter and other social networks.

Google is the default search engine for most people searching most topics. But as the real-time Web exploded, other search engines, like Twitter's and Bing, became more useful for those who wanted quick access to just those live updates.

Take earthquakes, for instance. To learn about the science of earthquakes or the movie "Earthquake," many people would go to Google. But when they feel a rumble while sitting on their couch, many go to Twitter instead to see if others are reporting the same thing.

At google.com/realtime, people will be able to search for those seconds-ago reports from Twitter as well as Buzz, Facebook, Friendfeed, MySpace, Jaiku and Identi.ca.

The new page comes almost a year after Google licensed Twitter's live data stream. Both Google and Bing began paying for Twitter updates last October. Bing quickly showed real-time results on a separate page, bing.com/social. Google took longer to display those results, and incorporates them into its main search results only when the topic has a real-time element.

Search "Tiger Woods" in Google today, for instance, and see Twitter posts about his current golf tournament and just-finalized divorce. But search another time, when he is not in the news, and there may be no real-time results.

People will use google.com/realtime when they are searching on a particular topic that they know is playing out now, like an earthquake, a loud noise or an event, said Dylan Casey, a product manager at Google, in an interview.

"Our focus is always on delivering the right answer, and sometimes the right answer is a result from the real-time search index," Mr. Casey said. "But there are times when users know exactly what they're looking for and want real-time results."

People can sort results by location and sign up for e-mail alerts delivered to their in-box with recent updates. In some cases they can click to see a conversation thread among several Twitter users, something that is hard to do on Twitter's own site.

Google sorts real-time search results based on many elements, including how many followers the writer has, how often the subject is being written about and how many times people are reposting messages.

"We're trying to balance between recency in terms of delivering the most up-to-date and real-time results, and delivering the most quality results," Mr. Casey said.