Twitter to let Google include tweets in search results

published 5 February 2015

Twitter and Google have reportedly signed a deal to bring users' tweets up in search results.

The social network and search engine giant are set to resurrect an agreement in which tweets will be visible in Google results, according to Bloomberg, which cited anonymous sources close to the matter.

While the news site said there was no advertising revenue-sharing involved in the contract, Twitter may be paid for sharing its data.

The move is expected to take effect in the first half of this year, after Twitter gives Google direct access to its backend stream of data generated by hundreds of millions of users.

Currently Google can only send its search spiders scurrying over Twitter's publically-accessible newsfeed, after a similar deal between the firms running from 2009-2011 came to an end.

Twitter had reportedly declined to renew the agreement back then to retain control over its content.

The move would boost the social network platform's visibility after CEO Dick Costolo complained that trolls are costing his company core users.

Citing a leaked internal memo, The Verge reported Costolo writing to staff: "We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years. It's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day."

"I'm frankly ashamed of how poorly we've dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It's absurd. There's no excuse for it.

"We're going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them."

The private admission comes after high-profile trolling cases such as Gamergate, in which a female game critic suffered abuse on the social network.

MP Stella Creasy and feminist campaigner Caroline Crialdo-Perez received rape threats last year after lobbying for Jane Austen to appear on the five-pound bank note.

Twitter introduced a range of abuse reporting tools in November 2014 in response to user requests.