Google is changing, and becoming far more effective than ever before. With personal and universal search we have seen results and information more relevant to our searches. Now with the relatively new real-time search, we are starting to see just how it can have a positive impact on results, and also give us more reason to trust in social media.

This morning 10:09 am a small earthquake measuring 4.1 struck San Francisco. According to Stephen Shankland at cnet, Within 6 minutes Google had reacted and was displaying real time search results in the form of twitter updates relating to the earthquake for searchers in and around the San Francisco area. In Detroit, it took about another 6 minutes for results to appear.

This kind of fast reaction on Googles part not only helps to improve the relevance of the search results, but also is a strong point in favor of pursuing social media as part of your web marketing campaign. If you put up a twitter post about a very current event, there is a chance that you will appear in the top results in a very short period of time.

Being active in Twitter is just one piece of the puzzle, but an active account can help drive traffic to your website and can also indirectly result in overall improved rankings for your site. Something every website owner should consider.