Now showing: Older Tweets in search results

Thursday, 7 February 2013

Yesterday, we updated our Android, iOS and mobile web apps to make it easier for you to find relevant content when you’re on the go. We also started to roll out an additional update on our mobile apps as well as on twitter.com: you’ll now be able to find older Tweets using search. To see for yourself, try searching for [Manchester United Southampton] or [#SpotTheShuttle].

Previously, Twitter search results displayed Tweets going back about a week. We’ve developed a way to include older Tweets, so you can see content that goes beyond the more recent Tweets.

As we roll this out over the coming days, the Tweets that you’ll see in search results represent a fairly small percentage of total Tweets ever sent. We look at a variety of types of engagement, like favorites, 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. For now, enjoy your trip down memory lane!

Posted by Paul Burstein (@pasha407)
Engineer, Search Infrastructure