You might have noticed some movement on your search results today. This little scrolling news feed (screenshot below) is Google's answer to real-time search! What they have dubbed the "Latest Results" is a compilation of consumer generated content that streamed into the search results. Instead of going through the normal Google algorithm of indexing and evaluating content for popularity and relevancy, the "latest results" are pulled in as soon as they are published on the web. Google is of course doing a bit of filtering for obscenity and spammy content.

If you think about it, a big chunk of the "social" content (status updates, tweets, photos, comments, etc) out there is meant to be fleeting. It's relevant at the time, but may not be relevant 10 mins from now. For example, tweets about Ryan's ripped abs on So you Think You Can Dance made sense during his shirtless performance... but 10 mins later, he wasn't even on stage. For this reason, Google has historically ignored most of this social content when indexing. 

This whole idea of real-time search may sound familiar since Bing introduced it earlier this year. While it seemed cool at first, Bing's solution is about to get blown away by Google's. From the user's perspective, Google's real-time search is much easier to use. It's  integrated seamlessly into the results instead of on separate pages (like Bing is doing).  Google is also backed with tremendous reach and unparalleled technology. They'll be pulling content from more places than just FB and Twitter (like Bing is doing).

Why are search engines scrambling to find a real-time search solution? Well, this part I find most interesting. Because search behaviors are changing. Research has shown that users are searching the same query over and over again to see what has changed. Like monitoring stories, tv shows, sporting events, speeches, etc. This is much different than how search was originally intended to work - search for something, visit a site, leave search engine. This behavior points to an idea that real time search being used less as a utility and more as programming itself. Users are "watching" the feed for entertainment!

How does this change SEO? The search engines will still be indexing and evaluating content  as they always have. There will just be a new section carved out in the natural search results for the real-time content. We'll just have to be even more cognizant of the fact that the social web is front and center.

What about paid search? Since users are doing multiple searches on the same query, that  could present some fun sequential messaging opportunities for advertisers : )