We knew that it would be coming eventually and the time apparently has come today. At least for some users that is, as Google stays true to its policy to roll out changes to their services over time.
Real-time search is an addition to the standard Google search results that users see when they perform a search in the search engine.
Those results are very much added like the other additions that Google has added to the search results over the year including images, videos or Google News stories. They appear as Latest results for the “search term” on the results pages.
The new entries are on the other hand slightly different from previous additions with text scrolling the most notable difference. A scrollbar is also provided to scroll those results as well as a pause button to stop the automatic updating.
The realtime search results – like other Google additions to the search results – can appear anywhere in the results from the very top to the bottom.
Most users probably will not have the chance to access them by performing searches in Google. There is however a way. Mashable notes that the Hot Topics in Google Trends are linking to search results pages that contain realtime results.
Google has released a demonstration video about the company’s latest addition to Google Search.
Google has not provided any information yet on the source selection process. The real-time entries are made up of various sources right now including Twitter messages but also news articles and Yahoo Answers. This could open the door for all sorts of manipulation.
I personally do not like this new addition and think that it does not add a lot of value to the search results. It makes them even harder to access and I would really like an option to turn off those features that I do not want in the search results.
Apart from potential abuse cases, it is also questionable if the real-time results add anything meaningful to the results. While that may be the case at times, think of a breaking news story, it may not most of the time.
What’s your opinion on the latest addition to Google Search?
Update: It appears that Google pulled the real-time search module from Google Search again. It appears to be no longer available.