According to recent reports, Google is reputedly working on arrangements with both Instagram and TikTok to index their content in search results. This is potentially huge news for anyone familiar with SEO, given that the Google Index, combined with the Google SERPs, comprise what is essentially the most comprehensive and efficient search results display and ranking system known to man.
To add a little more substance to the topic, indexing is a phrase used to describe the process by which different search engines index, evaluate, and store pages. Pages visited by Google’s ‘Googlebot’ crawler are added to the Google Index and may appear in Google SERPs if they follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Indexed pages that appear among the top results frequently have the ability to boost future ranking, as well as dramatically increase the engagement, audience perception, and reach of companies that are able to be listed among the top results.
What’s The Big Deal?
Google’s plans for Instagram and TikTok are comparable to what they were able to accomplish with Twitter in 2015. Following arduous discussions, Twitter offered Google access to a “Firehouse” of its tweet data, which Google subsequently decided to index immediately. Because of this collaboration, some individual Tweets show in search results today.
If the discussions succeed and Google is granted access to Instagram and TikTok videos, we may see their short-form material as prevalent as modern Tweets.
According to a Google spokesperson:
“We help sites make their content discoverable and benefit from being found on Google, and they can choose how or whether their content appears in Search.”
While there is a lot of money to be made in such a transaction, the platforms involved should proceed with caution because Google owns YouTube. As a video-based platform, Youtube competes for the same audience, and it’s simple to see why Instagram and TikTok would be hesitant to give information that could lead to them having lower ranks until things changed in their favor.
Looking at what Google and Twitter had in place, Twitter would be compensated in the form of an annual licensing fee, while Google would be granted complete, real-time power in order to index Tweets as soon as possible. While specifics are still unknown, we can anticipate similar results for Instagram and TikTok. Normally, you wouldn’t be able to manually search for specific videos outside of the site itself, but this collaboration aims to change that. While it does pose certain issues, it ultimately seeks to increase traction for the respective platforms.
The Wrap
Indexing has tremendously aided Twitter’s position, and the same can be said for Instagram and TikTok. Even if interaction and discovery are already high on each platform, their overall visibility and reach will only increase if their material is indexed. In time, we may all be able to find IG and TikTok videos in search results just as frequently as articles and infographics.
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