On Wednesday, Twitter suffered a massive breach that compromised several prominent accounts.
Some of the hacked accounts include those of former president Barrack Obama, Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Kanye West, and Apple, to name a few. The breach also affected Twitter’s support account.
The attack’s goal was to promote a Bitcoin scam in which the hackers reportedly earned nearly $120,000. In response, Twitter blocked new tweets from every verified user— compromised or not.
Google also took a similar drastic step.
Five years ago, Google started displaying tweets on its search engine result page. Before long, SEOs and marketers took advantage of the tweet carousels to dominate the search results.Â
The Twitter carousels box comes up on the search engine when you type prominent brands or personalities into the query box. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case.
Following the Wednesday breach, Google has completely removed the Twitter Carousels from its search results. Regardless of whether the account was hacked or not, tweets no longer appear for any account.
Removing Tweet Carousels From Search Results
It’s not surprising that Google would remove the carousels, at least temporarily. After such a massive attack, searchers would start wondering whether to trust a tweet that appears on the SERP.
Data from SEMRush and RankRanger suggests that tweets are no longer on the SERP. Besides, the search and advertising giant confirmed that it dropped the Twitter box in a statement to Search Engine Land.
The Google Spokesperson said:
“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.”
Based on the statement, Google would restore Twitter Carousels eventually. For now, brands that rely on Twitter as a Google Search strategy may have to find an alternative until Google determines the next step.
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