By John McCarthy, Director Search Engine Optimization
On December 7, 2009, Google introduced real-time options to its search engine. After conducting a search, you could see live updates from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before.
On Thursday, August 26 2010, Google announced Google Realtime Search now has its own homepage on www.google.com/realtime. With this update Google moved the "real-time content" from the usual search results to its own page.
Google organizes the Tweets from oldest to newest so you quickly see how the conversation developed. Of course, you can also integrate the service to Google Alerts.
The new homepage offers many advantages to the "integrated" set including being able to refine results according to a geographical location. This is particularly interesting because you can read how tweets differ in tone by city. For example, today folks in Los Angeles where happy to see Manny Ramirez leave the Dodgers and they used words like "good riddance" along with other colorful words. In contrast some White Sox fans in Chicago were talking about buying "Manny Wigs".
Integrated results for "Manny Ramirez" 
Geo-results for "Manny Ramirez" in Los Angeles 
Geo-results for "Manny Ramirez" in Chicago 
From an search engine optimization (SEO) perspective, Google Realtime Search is an extension of the Caffeine Update announced on June 8th. Prior to the Caffeine Update it often took Google days and weeks to find and publish new content. With the Caffeine Update, Google is constantly analyzing the web and updating its index on a continuous basis. Building on the Caffeine Update, Google Realtime Search provides a channel for "fresher" information faster than ever before.