Twitter and Google Said to Reach Deal on Search

Dick Costolo, Twitter's chief executive, at a company conference in October.

Twitter is expected on Thursday to announce a new partnership with Google, clearing the way for tweets on the microblogging service to be easier to find on the world's most popular search engine.

The deal, according to a person familiar with the matter, will give Google direct access to the hundreds of millions of tweets that flow through Twitter every day, and make it possible for tweets to more quickly appear in Google search results.

But the partnership, which was first reported by Bloomberg, is not unprecedented. Twitter and Google struck the same deal in 2009. But the two companies could not reach a financial agreement to continue the partnership, and abruptly ended it in 2011.

The move comes after a difficult year for Twitter. Since the company went public in 2013, investors have grown concerned that Twitter will not be able to attract new users to the service as quickly as competitors like Facebook, which has nearly five times as many as Twitter's 284 million monthly users.

Recently, Twitter has argued that the company's reach extends far beyond the people who regularly log in to their Twitter accounts. Many, for instance, see tweets embedded on media websites. Dick Costolo, Twitter's chief executive, is likely to point to the new agreement as another example of Twitter's true reach.

Twitter reports fourth-quarter earnings after the close of trading on Thursday. The deal with Google is likely to be discussed in a follow-up call with investors.

Representatives from both Google and Twitter declined to comment.

© 2015 New York Times News Service