The integrated nature of the digital world took an unexpected turn when Twitter’s decision to place severe rate limits hit search engines, especially Google. Higher indexing and display reduction means shared information has experienced a considerable limit on its reach. Reports indicate a drop of over 60% in the number of tweets indexed by Google, taking the number from 471 million to just 180 million. This sudden reduction indicates that fewer Twitter URLs exist on Google now compared to a few days ago.
While the full implications of this change are yet to be realized, a ripple effect has been set in motion. Google’s ability to display tweets from Twitter on search results has been significantly hampered. According to a spokesperson from Google, their “ability to crawl Twitter.com has been limited, affecting our ability to display tweets and pages from the site in search results.”
Swinging from the same branches of this tech tree, the renowned search engine optimization consultant Glen Gabe has highlighted the diminishing search visibility of Twitter accounts. This, he points out, is a consequence of Twitter’s action of redirecting non-logged-in users away from the site, hence ailing Google’s capability to crawl certain URLs. This shift could have deeper implications for industries, especially cryptocurrency where Twitter is used heavily for information dispersion.
In an unexpected turn of events, on July 2, the executive chairman of Twitter, Elon Musk revealed a temporary limit on the number of posts users can peruse daily. Musk rationalized this move by pointing to the mounting “extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation.”.
This move, unfortunately, has not been fondly received, particularly within the crypto community. The community is also ruffled by Twitter’s decision to block unregistered users from viewing tweets.
Interestingly, in a seemingly poetic irony, decentralized Twitter rival, Mastodon, is experiencing unprecedented growth. After the clampdown by Twitter, Mastodon has witnessed a spike in user activity, identified by its CEO, Eugen Rochko, who reports an increase by at least 110,000 active users.
Moreover, on the horizon is another Twitter competitor, Threads. This platform is owned by Meta’s Instagram and is set for launch this week. With the shifting digital paradigms, it will be intriguing to witness how the war of tweets plays out and impacts cryptocurrency content dispersion and consequentially, its markets.
Source: Cryptonews
