Los Angeles — In an altruistic social surroundings, micro-blogging outfit Twitter continues to make changes that it hopes will drive more traffic directly to the Twitter domain and bolster its value to advertisers. The company has just made it easier to find its millions of users on search engines by launching a new “Profiles Directory” tool.
Interestingly, the directory lists all user accounts alphabetically and includes profiles with numbers and non-Latin character names. However, Twitter did not formally announce its new directory but instead quietly added the feature on the bottom of its homepage.
According to Matt McGee in his recent article for Marketing Land:
Twitter launched the user directory a few weeks ago, but has not made a formal announcement about it. That is likely because it exists more for search engines than for Twitter users.
Twitter’s new Profiles Directory… (Credit: Screenshot by Dara Kerr/CNET)
In particular, the tool was most likely created to get Twitter into more searches on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other engines — rather than be particularly useful to the social network’s users, according to Search Engine Land.
In fact, as the bots crawl their way through the new directory, more Twitter profiles should start showing up in search. That is first step in the right direction, maybe. Also, the tool should be helpful in attracting advertisers because more search engine traffic usually means more page views, which is something advertisers look for in clients.
On the other hand, Facebook also has a profile directory, which looks almost similar to Twitter’s new tool. Google Plus has account listings too, according to the Labnol blog, but user information is less accessible because it is within thousands of XML files.