Google disables Realtime search
Search giant reveals that a deal to index real-time Twitter data has expired, but says it's only missing temporarily.
Google said today that it has temporarily disabled its Realtime search function in the wake of the introduction of its social network Google+.
The feature was developed to integrate real-time data from Twitter and other social-networking sites. The option for the feature has been removed from the right side of Google's search bar, and the feature's Web page now contains a 404 message.
"We've temporarily disabled google.com/realtime. We're exploring how to incorporate Google+ into this functionality, so stay tuned," the company said on its Google Realtime Twitter feed.
Google began indexing real-time Twitter messages in its search results in 2009, but apparently that arrangement with the microblogging site has expired.
"Since October of 2009, we have had an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results through a special feed, and that agreement expired on July 2," a Google representative told SearchEngineLand. "While we will not have access to this special feed from Twitter, information on Twitter that's publicly available to our crawlers will still be searchable and discoverable on Google."
When Realtime returns, it will feature content from a variety of sources, not just Google+, the company's recently unveiled social network, Google told SearchEngineLand.