As you probably all know, Twitter has been hacked in a big way yesterday. In short hackers pushing a crypto scam hijacked Twitter accounts for Bitcoin, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Ripple, Binance, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Apple, and many more. It seems like Google took action by removing the Twitter boxes from the Google search results.
In fact, I cannot see that Twitter box, with the carousel of recent tweets from anyone who normally shows tweets in Google, including my own name.
FiveBlocks shared a screen shot of the before and after with me on Twitter:
This seems to have been first spotted by Brodie Clark:
Whoa, looks like Google has demoted the visibility of Twitter accounts in Google Search. Likely related to many accounts being compromised with the BTC scam. Main change I'm seeing is the removal of the prominent real-time tweet carousel format. pic.twitter.com/JQTC7RDn0c
— Brodie Clark (@brodieseo) July 16, 2020
Yes, this is the same for all those names listed above and many more. Even when you searched for my name, up came tweets but not any more - that Twitter box has been removed, at least for the time being.
FiveBlocks tracks these boxes in Google and shows it has been fully removed:
SEMRush data is also showing the drop:
RankRanger data is also showing the drop:
I do not see a statement from Google on removing this box yet but it does make sense. If you cannot trust the tweets people are posting, then why should Google show them?
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Update: Google has now confirmed this and told us "We can confirm we have temporarily removed the Twitter carousel from Search following Twitter's security issues. Before restoring the feature we will carry out a careful review."
