This time last year, Microsoft’s Bing enjoyed the title of fastest growing search engine, experiencing 22% growth in its first year of existence.

But now, Bing can no longer claim that mantle as Twitter CEO Biz Stone proclaimed at the Aspen Ideas Festival this week, a gathering of the nation’s leading intelligentsia. Stone says Twitter is exceeding 800 million searches per day, which translates to 24 billion per month – almost twice as much as Bing and Yahoo combined!

(Last month, Bing had 4.1 billion searches and Yahoo had 9.4 billion)

Of course, this is nowhere near Google with over 88 billion searches a month but it’s quite respectable.

Lately, it’s been said you can jumpstart indexing of new content by posting it on Twitter in addition to your site since Google is constantly refreshing feeds from Twitter. With this newest data, you can safely assume many people are turning to Twitter to search for answers to their questions, news on current events and information on products and services.

Stone says Twitter has intentionally been trying to play this kind of angle – serving as not only a social network but a search engine as well. He argues there are many misconceptions regarding Twitter, saying that it’s “not a social network” but “…more like an information network or a source of news.”

Either way, Twitter is quickly becoming a relevant way to search for information online…we’ll see what some of the reports from comScore and others say when they come out. But if there’s any validity to Stone’s claims, you best consider how, when and if it’s wise for your business to jump in.

Evaluate the demand and presence of your industry on Twitter to get a better idea of when and how much effort you should put into it.

Normal crawling is reliable – just not quick enough sometimes…very inconsistent in other words.

Being reliable is great but if you’re 5 minutes late for the train, all the reliability in the world won’t matter if you’re inconsistent – show up early some days and late on others.

So, what can you do to get new content indexed faster in the search engines?

Continue reading for four tips on getting your site content indexed faster and check out the video below for more.

Update your XML sitemap and “ping” Google, etc.

Your XML sitemap is basically a file containing links to all of the pages on your site. Unlike an HTML sitemap, it is only visible to the search engines. Updating this file with links to new pages provides the search engine spider a one-stop place for finding everything on your site. So to get indexed faster, update your XML sitemap when you post new content. But instead of waiting for the spider to come, ping them through Google’s Webmaster Tools and let them know you have updated your file. If you ping, they will come.

Use Pubsubhubbub protocol

Pubsubhubbub protocol is a server-to-server web hook-based pubsub (publish/subscribe) protocol that you can place in your site’s coding. You can create your own public or private hub that news aggregators like Google Reader, Friend Feed and Feedburner can use to find your new content. You can plug-in your Wordpress blog utility and Superfeeder to automate this process. Whenever you post new content to a PSH-compatible site, these aggregators will immediately be notified of your site’s new content.

Create a “tweet” on Twitter

We recently discussed this on SEOe – Can Twitter Get a Site Indexed in the Search Engines All by Itself? While it’s not a long term solution, “tweets” on Twitter can provide your site that initial boost to get the spiders to come and index your new content. Considering Google is now indexing “tweets,” simply posting an announcement of your new content will immediately be picked up by the search engine.

Ping-o-matic

Ping-o-matic is a service that allows you to “ping” a bunch of different web services and notify them of new content on your site, much like ringing an alarm bell to alert the world to your new stuff. Ping-o-matic is linked up with different blog directories and news aggregators like PostRank, News Gator, Bloglines, Google Blog Search and more.

It’s to your advantage to find different ways to get your site’s content crawled and indexed as quickly as possible. Your competition is likely working hard to do the same thing so you don’t want to be passive and think that great content alone will bring home the bacon. If a competitor is working hard to get their content indexed quickly, they will leave you in the dust quicker than you can blink.

Check out this video SEOMoz produced on the heels of the SMX Advanced conference for more.

We spoke the other day about whether Twitter is a good tool for getting your site indexed and ranked. While it can provide you with a good boost initially, you have to sustain that energy by following up with a good crawlable site that includes compelling, keyword-rich content.

So how can I optimize my ‘tweets’ for search that can translate into a good boost for my search engine rankings?

Continue reading for 5 steps you can use to optimize your ‘tweets’ for search.

1. Front Load Tweets

Treat your Twitter post like it’s a Meta description tag. You only have 140 characters to make your splash so be sure you put the most important part of your ‘tweet’ at the beginning.

2. Anchor Text

Be sure and get your anchor text into the URL you’re linking to from your ‘tweet.’ If you’re using a shortening service like bit.ly or j.mp (uri’s), use the custom naming options to get your anchor text in there. Use hyphens to separate words but don’t overdo it!

3. Custom Named Uri’s

When using a shortening service like bit.ly, you can take the first three words of your page’s title and use them as a custom uri, if appropriate. Start your ‘tweet’ with the URI and lead into the rest of the title and/or sentence, like a precursor. You can also include the URI in the middle or end of a sentence – it all depends on the document title.

4. Retweets

You can also recycle old ‘tweets’ that are still relevant. Front load retweets and unlike original ‘tweets,’ place credit at the end rather than the beginning. Other than that, treat retweets like you would a regular ‘tweet.’

5. Retweet Scrubbing

Go through your ‘tweets’ every so often and fix any case issues or typos you may find. You can even edit the title if the ‘tweet’s’ originator changed the title based on the destination document. This change fragments the meaning of a ‘tweet’ in some ways. Twitter’s new retweet feature prevents this from happening but doesn’t allow scrubbing.

These are just a handful of tips to get you started on harnessing Twitter to boost your site’s indexing and ranking potential. You would be surprised at what you can do in 140 characters or less!

A short discussion at WebMasterWorld says yes as one webmaster says his new blog was indeed indexed by Google. The webmaster was experimenting to see how quickly his site would be indexed by simply ‘tweeting’ out the new URL.

Much to his satisfaction, his site was indexed the same day he posted his ‘tweet.’

While he can’t say this event was 100% due to Twitter, he wasn’t terribly surprised his site was indexed so quickly considering the arrangement between Google and Twitter and subsequent amount of bot activity that tweets are generating these days.

Forum veteran “Tedster” says he isn’t entirely surprised either but neither he nor the webmaster suggest that tweets are the road to success. However, Tedster does say he knows of another site that got a page indexed and ranking with only Twitter links.

While this may seem to be a good way to jump start indexing and ranking, it’s by no means a sustainable strategy. To build and maintain high search engine rankings, webmasters have to include all of the elements – good site architecture, links and original, valuable content.

Twitter may be a good place for Google to discover and index new content but since it’s “real-time,” it certainly cannot provide sustained ranking or indexing power.

Therefore, Twitter can be a great tool in jump starting your site’s indexing and ranking but you must follow up with elements mentioned above to sustain and build your position in the search engines.

Saying your content is “old” however can be a bit misleading…if your blog has tips, insights and other general observations about your niche, readers will find it useful long after you initially write it. Content like this can be referred to as “evergreen” content.

Our friends over at HubSpot recently conducted an experiment with their evergreen content – using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter to get the word out about the rich content that’s on their blog, not just what visitors see on the main page.

At SEOe, we publish 3 feature posts/articles each week so it’s likely visitors and subscribers have not read every one of them. But considering the structure of our blog and what we write about, something from 6 months ago is likely relevant today.

Continue reading to see how over the course of two months, HubSpot promoted carefully selected “evergreen” blog posts, podcasts and other things to promote on social media sites. Their goal was to generate additional traffic without spending time creating new content.

1. Content Selection

To narrow down what they chose to promote, the team found prior articles that received the most comments, traffic and links. Timely content like breaking news events was excluded as were articles they felt were no longer relevant.

2. Promotion

Over the course of two months, the team promoted 57 items on Facebook and Twitter. Considering differences between the two, the team promoted 3 content items per workday on Twitter and 1 per workday on Facebook.

Another factor they considered was positioning the content…which was important since they didn’t want to interfere with promoting their new stuff.  And they didn’t want to make people think they were clicking on something old so they promoted items in a conversational tone rather than listing the title like they do for new articles.

Here’s an example of one of their “tweets,” which they posed as a question:

Stuck in a lead generation rut? Learn some new tips & tricks in our comprehensive Lead Gen Marketing Hub! http://bit.ly/LeadGenHub

To see the effectiveness of this experiment, the HubSpot team tracked the change in social media traffic to the blog. They also created unique “bit.ly” links to each of the content items and tracked clicks to those. On average, evergreen content received 198 clicks along with more traffic from Facebook/Twitter to their main blog.

Here’s one easy way to drive more traffic to your blog that doesn’t require much effort to research and implement. If you have a blog that serves as a “knowledge” resource for your readers, consider particular posts that are still relevant and promote them through Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets.

Real-time search results were recently introduced into search engine result pages on Google and Bing. Much discussion by the SEO and online marketing community ensued – and many were scratching their heads wondering how it would be a wise investment for the search engines and a benefit to online searchers.

OneUpWeb’s research confirms many of their concerns.

Their study involved 44 people broken into two groups – “consumers”, or those looking to buy a specific product, and “foragers”, those tasked with simply looking for information on a product. Last month’s study sought to answer the following three questions.

1. Does the average Internet user recognize and understand real-time results?
2. Are consumers finding and clicking on “real-time” results?
3. What are consumers saying about real-time results?

According to the eye-tracking study and further interviews, the majority of participants were at least indifferent to real-time search, stating that it didn’t provide them with much. Around 73% of the consumer group didn’t even look at real-time search results…53% of the forager group did not look at real-time results.

Take a look at the eye-tracking study below to see where the searchers’ main focus of attention was. Real-time results can be seen at the bottom of the screenshot.

The U.K’s Guardian newspaper reports that real-time search agreements with Facebook, Twitter, etc. have cost Google around $15 million and Bing around $10 million. It would seem at this point that their investment isn’t proving to be worth their time.

While many techies and insiders praise real-time search results as the next big thing, the general public doesn’t seem to understand what the buzz is all about.

Building your network involves more than just adding users to your friends list. Participation is required and is how you get noticed. Voting for, spreading and commenting on other users’ content shows you’re willing to work hard and contribute to the community.

Keep reading for a basic outline of 9 do’s and don’ts of building your social bookmarking networks online.

1. DO friend, IMvite and follow power users but DON’T become a pest

The best place you can start building your social media presence is by making friends with power users. They have literally hundreds, if not thousands of friends and a vote on your content from them can often translate into additional votes from their followers.

But remember, people are busy. They don’t have time to digg, vote or retweet 100 links a day or have time for juvenile questions like “How many diggs does it take to hit page one?” Be sure you vote on their content and they will eventually take notice.

2. DO participate in the SOCIAL part of social bookmarking but DON’T be a troll

Commenting and participating in conversations on social networking sites isn’t so much about being social as much as it’s about being noticed and showing you take time to look at other’s submissions.

But don’t be too controversial and don’t reply to something just to disagree. You can be funny but not everyone shares your sense of humor so be careful.

3. DO embrace multiple social networks but DON’T spread yourself too thin

There are literally thousands of social media networks and instant messaging utilities out there. Joining multiple social bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit is a great way to expand your reach. Manage your time wisely though. Creating and maintaining a profile is a lot of work so don’t spread yourself too thin.

4. DO submit content from community favorite sites but DON’T submit commercial content

When you’re a part of a social bookmarking community like Digg or Reddit, it’s likely you will notice certain sites producing outstanding content on a regular basis since they’re always on the front page. Being the first to submit new content from these sites is a great way to get noticed.

On the other hand, submitting content that has no place in the community you’re in is one of the sure-fire ways to fail at social bookmarking. If you appear as a marketer, folks will vote your stuff down and remove you as a friend. Be sure what you’re promoting is worthy of votes!

5. DO submit content from a variety of sites but DON’T consistently submit content from a single site or short list of sites

This may seem obvious but a lot of people will only submit their own content and occasionally make comments on or vote on other stuff. This is a red flag that you’re only in it for the marketing, which is something you don’t want to look like.

The best way to avoid looking like a marketer is to submit articles, etc. from a wide variety of websites.

6. DO sign in, vote up, retweet and comment regularly. DON’T leave huge lapses of activity in your account(s)

One of the keys to successful marketing through social bookmarking sites is being a regular. Taking too much time away could mean all of your hard work going to waste. It’s not that you can’t take a well deserved vacation. But the more available you are to vote and spread submissions of others, the more influence you will have in pushing your own stuff.

7. DO perform favors for your friends but DON’T ask for too much without giving something back

Help your friends out and they’ll help you! Don’t wait to vote up or retweet your friend’s submissions. If you go out of your way for them, the more likely they’ll do the same for you.

Don’t ask too much without giving something in return and if you ask someone to vote or retweet something, be sure it’s top quality content. Eventually, people will avoid or ignore you altogether if it’s not.

8. DO act like a human being, DON’T act like a computer or robot

The purpose of social media is to be “social”, not just amass hundreds of friends in some desperate attempt to look important. If you’re trying to get content out to as many people as possible, you need to act like a real person. Be friendly and have conversations with others online from time to time.

9. DO keep at it and DON’T give up

Like anything, building a network for social bookmarking sites takes a lot of time and hard work. You don’t have to spend all day everyday on social media to be successful. But you need to find a routine you’re comfortable with and stick with. Persistence is the key to success.

To learn more about developing a strong social networking presence, read Building Social Bookmarking Networks 101 from Search Engine Journal.

Google is partnering with several social media outlets to post real time results for users. Go to Google and type in any popular search term or story of the day. After a few seconds, you will see it constantly update with users’ postings from social networking sites in real time. From my experimenting, you need to click “show options” after you enter your search terms and click latest for the time range.

As you can see in Google’s promotional video below, this utility may be very useful for learning about things currently happening that have an immediate impact on people’s lives – like the search for traffic update in a large city.

Many search engine optimization experts conversing about this in a couple of forums – WebMasterWorld and DigitalPoint – seem a bit concerned about this – and I can understand where they’re coming from.

The consensus is that this clutters up search results and it runs the risk of pushing their hard earned rankings farther down the list. One questions how Google will filter out useless postings that happen to contain the keywords the user searched for.

In any event, SEOs can adapt by using Twitter and Facebook to ensure their results show up in that area when applicable.

How will Google’s change affect you? Let us know in the comments field!

Well, nothing really – but we like to include things that are of general interest sometimes to keep things interesting. And this term, zeitgeist, caught my attention as it carries certain significance with me.

Webster’s New World Collegiate Dictionary defines the term zeitgeist as “the spirit of the age; trend of thought and feeling in a period.” Therefore, Google’s use of the term to outline the fastest rising Google searches and the most popular search terms is justifiable.

So what has captivated the curiosity of web surfers this year?

Well, searches of Michael Jackson (probably due to his untimely death) topped the Google’s global list of fastest growing search terms. He wasn’t the only entertainer to make the list – sensation Lady Gaga topped many regional lists and landed #9 on the global list.

2009’s online search zeitgeist also indicates social media is very much alive and well, a sweeping confirmation of its increasing importance. Facebook and Spanish social-networking site Tuenti appeared in the #2 and #3 fastest growing search term spot respectively. Twitter came in at #5 – the first time it has appeared on Google’s zeitgeist list.

Concerns about the swine flu epidemic also drove individuals looking for information to Google. In the U.S., it had more searches than another major event of the year – the inauguration of President Barack Obama!

And finally, the sour economy brought out the thrifty consciousness of many as evidenced by the rising popularity of do-it-yourself searches and searches for comfort food recipes to make at home. Chili was the most popular recipe searched for on Google in the U.S.

Check out Google’s Zeitgeist 2009 site for the U.S. for some interesting lists and charts on search trends for the year – it’s pretty interesting to see what the global trends are in terms of online search. Perhaps information like this can be helpful – but it’s definitely interesting nonetheless.

These two forms of online marketing are no longer mutually exclusive from one another.

A lot of online marketing firms will urge you to create a Facebook profile or start a Twitter account for your small business. However, you need to stop and ask yourself why. Are they simply trying these as tactics to get an angle in the search engines?

As we’ve discussed here before and what any honest SEO will tell you, unique and valuable content is required for social media to be a successful marketing vehicle. High search engine rankings may be a short-term benefit (if you manage to get there) of simple keyword-rich content.

This won’t matter too much – in the long-term, online shoppers will look at your products and services as simply another sales pitch they’ve heard a 1000 times.

What makes content valuable? That’s for your audience to decide. Their needs and pain points may not be the same as yours so that’s why it’s important to diligently research your target audience. Ultimately, they have to decide if your product will solve their problem.

And content isn’t just text…videos, audio/podcasts and even graphics that show the user how to use your product and how it works is helpful too.

Consumers who use social media are much more discerning than traditional avenues…traditional advertising practices simply won’t work. Content needs to have value to the reader if there’s any hope you will close sales. Take some time to listen and research social media communities to see what your target audience is thinking before investing a lot of time in creating content.

And you will know pretty quick if your audience finds what you have is useful to them or not.