The Technologyreview.com, interviewed Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow, who led development of real-time search for Google.

Back in December Google announced that is was going to being to index real time search results for Twitter and Facebook entries.

This is the first time I have read an account of how Google is actually going to rank and index real time searches.

According to Mr. Singhal, “In the case of tweets, the key is to identify “reputed followers”

“You earn reputation, and then you give reputation. If lots of people follow you, and then you follow someone, then even though this [new person] does not have lots of followers,” his tweet is deemed valuable because his followers are themselves followed widely, Singhal says.

It is “definitely, definitely” more than a popularity contest””

The article goes on to quote Mr. Singhal to say:

“”One user following another in social media is analogous to one page linking to another on the Web. Both are a form of recommendation.”

“As high-quality pages link to another page on the Web, the quality of the linked-to page goes up. Likewise, in social media, as established users follow another user, the quality of the followed user goes up as well.”

All and all a very interesting article and you should go and check out the post in detail, especially those of you that have any interest in social media sites, getting additional traffic and/or Google ranking, which I believe should be all of you.