Micro-blogging and social-networking service Twitter has recently enhanced its search capabilities to show tweets with a date older than a week ago. Search results were previously limited to tweets posted over the past week.
With the update, announced on 7 February, users can now see posts most relevant to their queries based on various criteria. It appears that older tweets will surface in search results on the basis of their popularity over time.
“We look at a variety of types of engagement, like favourites, retweets and clicks, to determine which Tweets to show. We’ll be steadily increasing this percentage over time and ultimately, aim to surface the best content for your query,” Twitter’s search infrastructure engineer Paul Burstein said in a blog post announcing the update.
The search update comes along with updates the company rolled out last week for its Android, iOS and mobile web apps, which make it easier for users on the go to find information. Now all the content from the Discover tab is displayed in a single stream (instead of being broken down by types), showing what the company calls the “most relevant mix of tweets, photos, and accounts.” The search update to show older tweets is also being implemented on mobile apps.