I posted this question as I’m still not sure if you can even optimize for Google Live Search aside from submitting to social networks. Live Search pulls the most recent updates from social networks across the web and displays them in line with regular Google results. New results are pulled as they happen.
Since these are based on recent updates it would seem that they are only searchable for a short period. Older social posts still appear in live search, but they get progressively pushed further down the page. Fickle viewers statistically only view the fist 1-5 listings so this wouldn’t pull much weight with the majority of people.
Here’s a shot of Google Live Search if you haven’t seen it yet. The listing under my WordPress blog site is the actual live view. It must be Ajax they’re using to pull results that appear entwined in a scrollable search box within the search results.
Google Live Search Vs. Facebook
The big controversy here is that Facebook being a social network will be indexed by Google Live Search. As of December 14th this has become a reality. By default all Facebook accounts are wide open for inclusion into Google live search results.
So if you don’t wish to have your Facebook page and status updates crawled by Googlebot follow the instructions below. Thanks Wezzul.
Settings –> Privacy Settings –> Search –> then UN-CLICK the box that says ‘Allow indexing’.
Cool Live Search Features
From The Official Google Blog:
Our real-time search features are based on more than a dozen new search technologies that enable us to monitor more than a billion documents and process hundreds of millions of real-time changes each day. Of course, none of this would be possible without the support of our new partners that we’re announcing today: Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku and Identi.ca — along with Twitter, which we announced a few weeks ago.
- Filter your results to see only “Updates” from micro-blogs like Twitter, FriendFeed, Jaiku and others.
- Works with the iPhone and Android
How to turn on Live Search
With Google open click on the, “Show Options”, link at the top of the page. On the left hand side under, “Any Time”, click on latest.
How Does This Effect SEO?
It’s still unclear to me exactly how this will change how we market web sites as I’m already hitting the social networks. So I guess time will tell if there is more we should be doing to get the most out of Google Live Search. In the mean time, I’ll keep my eye on the trends and get back with you. 
About Me: Nate Balcom is a web designer and social media guru with over 11 years of experience in the web industry. He specializes in web design and development, SEO and social networking. You can follow him on Twitter here. 
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