Google has discontinued its Realtime Web Search results. The "Realtime" option no longer appears in the left hand sidebar nor does it appear in the "More" drop-down menu that appears at the top of the Google Web Search homepage.

It has been reported that Realtime results were discontinued because Google's agreement with Twitter to receive updates from that site expired. However, the loss of access to Twitter's feed coincided strangely with Google's launch of its own social networking site Google+.

When originally introduced, The Realtime results were revolutionary. Originally called "Updates," (as seen above) they were drawn from a variety of sources such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and FriendFeed updates, with the majority of them coming from Twitter. This was very different from the way other types of results were returned by Google. Another major difference was that Google continued to run your search and if it detected new results that matched your search term(s) while you’re browsing the results list, those new were added to the top of the list.

Portions of this post are excerpted from:

"Google For Lawyers: Essential Search Tips and Productivity Tools" is a hands-on guide to the Google tools, tips, and tricks that can help you work smarter...not harder.

The post Google Stops the Clock on Realtime Search Results appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.

In the Spring of 2010, Google made a major alteration in the way it displayed search results with the introduction of the left-hand sidebar.

One of the new additions to the sidebar was the "Updates" option which displayed "real-time" search results drawn from a (seemingly) finite group or sources like Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, and MySpace. At the time, the majority seemed to be coming from Twitter though.

Google's left-hand sidebar circa Spring 2010

Today we noticed Google has renamed the "Updates" option with the more descriptive name "Realtime."

Google's current left-hand sidebar

Additionally, some searches display the following legend at the bottom indicating that all of the results listed have been drawn from Twitter.

The post Google Updates ‘Updates’ its Search Sidebar – Now Referred to as ‘Realtime’; Some Searches Displaying Only Twitter Results appeared first on Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in California, MCLE Los Angeles, CLE Orange County, Irvine & San Francisco.