Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, there has been a wave of new upgrades to the platform to presumably make it better.
X (formerly Twitter) recently introduced a new feature called “Articles”, which is exclusively meant for premium users.
The X articles feature allows users to publish long-form content, breaking away from the platform’s character limit.
But if you are like most SEO enthusiasts, you’ve probably asked yourself an important question: can Google index X articles so they are discoverable on search?
Think about how SEO marketers could use this to repurpose their website content for more organic traffic. Even Gemini seems to think this is an “interesting question”.
What we know about X Articles so far
- X Articles function similarly to conventional blog posts, enabling users to create in-depth content with multimedia various elements.
- The feature is currently still under development and limited to a select group of premium users.
Can X Articles be Indexed by Google?
The simple answer is, it’s too early to say for sure whether X Articles will be indexed and rank on Google Search. However, there’s a chance they might be, especially if they become publicly available.
While there’s no definitive answer yet, here’s a breakdown of the factors at play:
Reasons for Potential Indexing:
- Public Content: If X Articles are made publicly viewable, even for non-premium users, Google’s web crawlers could potentially find and index them.
- Search Engine Friendliness: X (formerly Twitter) has a good track record with Google Search, and its content has generally been indexed with ease in the past. Assuming nothing changes in terms of how content is available on the platform, X articles could show up on Google.
Reasons for Uncertainty:
Even with this possibility, there are still some uncertainties on to whether Google can index articles on X.
- Limited Access: Currently, only a select few have access to X Articles. Google might not prioritize indexing limited-access content (think Facebook).
- Technical Implementation: Depending on how X implements Articles technically, indexing could be affected. For example, if Articles are heavily embedded within the X platform and not accessible through standard URLs, Google might have difficulty finding them.
Staying Updated on X Articles and Google Search Visibility
At the moment, there is no official word from either X or Google on whether X Articles are designed to be indexed. This is probably because it’s a very new feature.
If you are looking to use X Articles to grow your SEO in future, it might be worth following development updates from the official X announcements. If you are already an X premium member, you can also try publishing articles from your account and searching for them on Google to see if they appear.
I’ve always been positive that Twitter is a great tool for marketers. And if X Articles become searchable on Google, this will definitely impact content discovery and play out even better for content marketers already active on the platform.