Google has reportedly removed much of Twitter’s links from its search results after the social network’s owner Elon Musk announced reading tweets would be limited.

Search Engine Roundtable found that Google had removed 52% of Twitter links since the crackdown began last week. Twitter now blocks users who are not logged in and sets limits on reading tweets.

According to Barry Schwartz, Google reported 471 million Twitter URLs as of Friday. But by Monday morning, that number had plummeted to 227 million.

“For normal indexing of these Twitter URLs, it seems like these tweets are dropping out of the sky,” Schwartz wrote.

Platformer reported last month that Twitter refused to pay its bill for Google Cloud services.

  • AlmightySnoo 🐢🇮🇱🇺🇦@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Elon going to complain about another conspiracy going on while in reality it’s just that when crawlers are not able to open a certain URL they simply assume that the page doesn’t exist anymore. Google certainly didn’t “retaliate”, bots simply couldn’t find those pages anymore.

  • Tygr@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Elon, please buy Reddit and repeat your amazing ideas over there. You are so smart.

  • assembly@lemmy.world
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    Doesn’t sound like retaliation to me, it sounds like their scheduled web crawlers are finding that content they used to index is now no longer viewable and this removed from search results. Pretty standard. My guess is that there were 400 million URLs listed and as the crawler uncovers that they are no longer available, that number will keep dropping to reflect only content publicly viewable. If only 500 URLs are now publicly viewable (without logins) then that’s what they will index. Google isn’t a search engine for private companies (unless you pay for the service) they are a public search engine so they make an effort to ensure that only public information is indexed. Some folk game the system (like the old expertsexchange.com) but sooner or later google drops the hammer.

    • zurohki@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I don’t think Twitter would rate limit the Google indexer, though.

      It’s probably the increased bounce rate, as people click Twitter links in the search results, get Twitter’s login wall and click back to continue searching instead of creating an account.

      • jaqque@lemmy.world
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        I tried to access twitter by impersonating a googlebot. I was denied. The bots aren’t so much rate limited, but unable to access tweets as they don’t have a Twitter account.

  • drathvedro@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Good. Hopefully they remove links to pinterest, quora and facebook too while they’reat it.

    • Knightfox@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Once upon a time Quora had reasonably accessible information. Now I find it nearly unusable and only go there as a last desperate effort which is generally fruitless. Pinterest is annoying, but generally you can still view some content. What’s annoying is trying to download, copy, or isolate content there. If all you want to do is view an image, Google can typically still pull the image out and make it viewable from the search. The problem only arises if you try to go in and see the original.

      • MrShankles@reddthat.com
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        Thank you for typing out my exact thoughts/experience. Saved me a lot of time, not having to put too many thoughts into words.

        I’ll only add that, of course pintrest has workarounds… but I’ll usually spend more time looking for content that isn’t so “locked out”. Cause it’s a pain in my ass trying to go around it when I just wanna see examples of some random bullshit real quick. Sometimes I click a pintrest link without noticing and immediately go back to search, cause fuck that.

        Quora I still click sometimes; cause it’s like a box of coconut-filled chocolates, save only one nutella-filled chocolate… you pretty much know what you’re gonna get

      • Tag365@lemmy.world
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        Yeah, Quora was somewhat decent, but now they force this arbitrary “All related” sort as the default setting for presenting answers and it shows answers for different questions which is nonsense. I’m looking for an answer specific to one question, so don’t show me stuff that appears somewhat related…

    • Zithero@lemmy.world
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      Please remove Quora links…

      Every time I click a Quora link it takes me to a completely unrelated question to the one I clicked on.

      I swear that site is doing this deliberately to make it seem like it has more traffic than it does.

        • Gabu@lemmy.world
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          This functionality is currently broken on DDG and was broken on Google about one year ago. Search engines as a whole need complete overhauling

    • Cras@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      I have a chrome plugin to strip any Pinterest results from searches, it’s the absolute worst

    • allforthebest@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      Pinterest in search results is totally cringy, but by itself it’s a very good place to find images you need and has very cool recommendation algorithms.

      • anonforker@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        some cases with pinterest result is absolute garbage and might as well better to search on search engine image instead

  • Rocket@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s funny how Spez idolizes a guy who doesn’t pay his bills. It’s also funny watching the hate pplatform Twitter get absolutely destroyed by its owner. The internet in 2023 is a wild and crazily changing place.

    • riodoro1@lemmy.world
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      At this point I’m half convinced spez was such an asshole to Reddits users because of how the community turned on his idol elon. I remember not longer than two years ago Reddit was basically musk circlejerk but this genius fucked up even that.

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        I think it’s even stupider than that. Spez didn’t realize he pissed off the Apollo dev, and the shock of that first Apollo post made him ashamed and angry. He’s kept a lot of vitriol aimed at the Apollo dev. Spez fucked reddit because he got mad.

        • Redtitwhore@lemmy.world
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          That was just the tipping point. Reddit has been in a decline for a few years but we were all like frogs in boiling water but we accepted it because we didn’t know where else to go. RIF shutting down forced my hand and now I’m here. Hopefully to stay.

      • overlordror@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I can’t believe how fast the fediverse is growing thanks to both reddit and Twitter simultaneously imploding. I honestly welcome it, despite the growing pains this feels more like early 2000s reddit than the modern version ever did.

        Can’t wait for genZ to welcome the return of spaces that aren’t optimized for monetization over communication first.

        • Cabrio@lemmy.world
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          As someone who spent the last 13 years browsing reddit almost entirely with RIF, if it hadn’t been for third party services I’d have left when they added awards.

            • kofe@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Are there any for video/voice chat similar to discord? I feel like there are split opinions on it as a platform as they’ve made so many changes with community servers, plus their early association to Charlottesville obviously leaves concerns…but there’s definitely tons of wholesome groups where I’ve made life-long friends. I love that it’s remained ad free but don’t see that lasting

  • Idefinitelydonotknow@lemmy.world
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    I am genuinely curious. What’s the role of the new CEO if this turd keeps doing everything he can to burn this ish to the ground?

  • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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    You’ve heard of a “walled garden”.
    But this… this has become a “walled right-wing dumpster”.

  • Ruorc@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Blocking users who are not logged in has farther reaching consequences that aren’t readily apparent. For example, there was an AMBER Alert a few days ago with a short link to see more info. The link goes back to a Twitter account/tweet. All that time sensitive, useful information was behind a wall where you can’t see it unless you log in. Most people aren’t going to create an account just to do that.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Twitter was an important unifying communications tool during the Arab Spring. The Arab spring was a threat to biz as usual in places like Saudi Arabia. The second largest investor in Twitter is Saudi Arabia.

    Saudi Arabia killed and dismembered a journalist from the US, more or less in plain sight. Elon is now killing and dismembering Twitter in plain sight to limit its power as a unifying tool that stands as a demonstrable, active threat to capitalism and oligarchs around the world.

    Billionaires do favors for other billionaires. It’s part of why spez is trying to tank Reddit. Remember how dangerous Reddit was to capitalism’s status quo around the time of GME/Robinhood/Antiwork recently.

    The specific moment we’re in right now is meant to shatter consolidated organizing power on Reddit as we splinter into several smaller alternative platforms (or for some, disconnect entirely). Not saying we shouldn’t be in Lemmy, but calling out the larger reality of the moment.

    Billionaires do favors for other billionaires.

  • Kriv@lemmy.world
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    Ahh the genius that is Elon Musk, I’m sure we’re all cowering at his superior intellect.

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        1 year ago

        That is literally the complaint from ex-employees of his companies. He is Tony Stark meets Michael Scott. So much money it compensates for sheer stupidity.

      • Briongloid@aussie.zone
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        Literally all you need is enough money and you can pay smart people to do impressive things, while taking all the credit.

      • lasagna@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        SpaceX has a lot to benefit from the fact that a lot of people love the idea of working with rockets but the actual job market was very limited with places like NASA only taking the best of the best. Which doesn’t mean SpaceX has subpar engineers and scientists, humanity just has a lot more to offer than NASA and other smaller space agencies could afford to employ.

    • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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      It’s absolutely beyond me why these idiots don’t pay people to think of clever things and discourage dumb things.

      Imagine having your own “think tank”, it works be like living life on cheat mode.

      • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Smart rich people have advisors they listen to.

        Rich people who are too “smart” to listen to advice have sycophants.

    • OldSchoolMonkey@lemmy.world
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      This. This baffles me. How he was able to run a company which makes rockets which shuttles between earth and outerspace?

      • mstrbassist@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I read a quote somewhere from a former Space X engineer that they basically had to create a system to manage Musk and his fragile ego so that they can function normally without Musk getting in the way.

        • Meldroc@lemmy.world
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          So basically, Gwynne Shotwell is the one actually calling the day-to-day shots, and happens to be a good Elon-whisperer.

          I wonder if other companies, particularly VC-funded ones, have staff dedicated to “managing” the crazy person with the checkbook…

        • kobra@lemm.ee
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          So it takes rocket scientists to manage this guy in such a way to keep him from burning everything down around him?

          You’re probably right. And it’s wild to think that safely flying astronauts to the ISS probably wasn’t the hardest part of their day that day.

  • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
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    Mind you this is not Google doing it on purpose. This is just Musk’s genius idea of blocking tweets without being logged in. Others will drop as well, they just need some time to expire. Also, if you are wondering if they can show tweets to crawler but not show it to others Google doesn’t look favorably on that. Content must appear the same to crawler as well as humans.

  • Hypx@kbin.social
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    For one thing, this is sad because even more of the Internet is no longer reachable. The Internet shrinks, and will continue to get smaller as enshittification continues.

    But on the other hand, this is really starting to look like the death knell of Twitter. It’s quickly becoming extremely inconvenient to see any tweets on Twitter now.

    • Obinice@lemmy.world
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      Yeah, if the content is walled off from the public, there’s not much point indexing it

      It’s a shame it’s come to this, but there are literal crazy people at the helm over at Twitter…

        • stevedidWHAT@lemmy.world
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          Would that fit with his own head cannon though?

          Elon has been a destroyer behind closed doors it’s sounds like, tough to say if it was just due to how pompous and narcissistic he is or if it was deliberate retaliation for being a whiny little spoiled brat.

    • MimicJar@lemmy.world
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      So this decision is solely because the results can no longer be viewed by non-logged-in users.

      Glad to see (semi) confirmation of this. It’s the same reason paywall news sites are magically not paywalled (or less paywalled) when coming from a Google search. If you’re showing Google something different than what you’re showing users, Google is going to remove or down rank your results.

      What makes this more “news-worthy” is that Google and Twitter have had a great relationship for many years and Twitter is typically among the top results (for some topics). Obviously Musk has been destroying that relationship over the past year.

    • minnow@lemmy.world
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      Makes a ton of sense. It only makes Google look bad when their users can’t actually view the results of their search. Imagine if the first page of a Google search was nothing but limited access stuff (paywalls, members only, etc) it would drive users to the competition really fast.