Keywords in Your Twitter Name Seem to Matter for Twitter Search

Remember that little experiment I wrote about two months ago, where I was wondering how much a keyword in your account name matters when optimizing for Twitter search?

Apparently it matters.

I changed the name of @GlassAlmanac, the Twitter account for my hobby site Glass Almanac, from “Glass Almanac” to “Google Glass Almanac.” The account was originally MIA if you searched Twitter for accounts about Google Glass. After I changed the account name, it hit the Top 15 and eventually settled in at No. 6.

Sometime within the last 2-3 weeks, this happened:

Nice, right?

That’s what I see when I do a Twitter search for “google glass” in three of four accounts that I have access to. When I’m logged in to the fourth Twitter account (the @atu2 account, if you need to know), I still see it at No. 6.

There must be some kind of personalization going on, but I don’t see any logic behind the other accounts seeing @GlassAlmanac at No. 2 and this one seeing it at No. 6.

As I wrote in December, this isn’t meant to be anything close to a scientific study. It’s completely anecdotal, and obviously there are many factors that determine Twitter search results. But it seems pretty safe, if not a bit obvious, to say that having the keyword in the account name matters. And whatever else Twitter uses, cool … I’m just happy to be up there near the top.

(Now if only more people would use Twitter search to find Glass-related accounts and start following @GlassAlmanac….)