The Secret Formula for Search

Has it happened to you yet?

Have you typed in a Google search and found yourself staring at that new little results box with entries that change every few seconds? Has it enhanced your search experience or driven you crazy?

The real-time search box doesn't come up for every search on Google, and even though Twitter has reportedly inked a $25 million deal with Microsoft and Google (for $15 million and $10 million respectively) that pays Twitter for access to its real-time results, I haven't yet seen the box on Bing. At least I still feel like I understand the search results there.

In a world where technology seems to change almost daily, I guess it's just best to embrace change. But for me, the new information on Google still creates more questions than it answers. Here are just a few of them:

What algorithms determine what shows up in the real time results?
It's not like consumers ever controlled algorithms in traditional search results, but the immediacy of the results you get seem to make it more important to understand how they get there in the first place -- that's if you ever want to actually find useful information in real time. In other words, would I get less search "garbage" if I look for certain phrases or exclude certain terms?

Why don't real-time results show on Bing?
Do you have to search differently to get the results on Bing? Is there now more reason to use one search engine over the other depending on what kind of info you're looking for?

What if you get an awesome link in your results, only to click away and come back to find it's disappeared?
Maybe this is why I'm reluctant to get hooked on real-time results. Maybe I'm afraid I'll find a nugget of useful information among all the results flowing in only to lose it in the great sea of blog and micro-blogging results.

As I ponder these and other questions, I just came across a post that assures me I'm not the only one still trying to figure this all out. According to Search Engine Land, Brittany Murphy's death is the first big test for Google's real time search results. As sad as her death is, I'm glad it's not a major world crisis that's leaving everybody scrambling how to figure out how to use this latest technology tool.