How to search a specific user’s feed in Twitter

The half-life of a Tweet is extremely short (estimated by some to be as little as four minutes). We usually worry about this as content creators wondering how long our message will be visible to our readers, but it can be a problem on the consumer side as well. Many times I’ve wanted to reference a particular tweet that I vaguely remember reading a while back that has long since scrolled off my screen into relative obscurity.

Most Twitter clients don’t easily offer this type of focused search and the Advanced Search on Twitter is highly unreliable and limited to very recent tweets (in other words, not much better than CTRL+F on the profile page!) However, we can easily accomplish a search that is restricted to a particular user or set of users via a simple method and the fact that Google *does* have a long memory.

To take advantage of the power of a Google search focused on a single Twitter account, follow these steps:

Navigate to the user’s twitter profile and copy the address.
For example: https://twitter.com/avinashkaushik
Do a Google search using the SITE: operator in this format:
{keyword} SITE:{twitter profile address without the http}

Which would look something like this:

Happy searching!

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ckoberg

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ckoberg

Corey Koberg is a Founder and co-CEO at Cardinal Path where he leads the analysis, data science, media, and product development teams. He is a well-known speaker, having keynoted and led sessions on advertising, analytics, and optimization at conferences and events across the globe. Over the last decade he has taught thousands on the topics of online marketing measurement, statistical analysis, and optimization. He is the author of Display Advertising: An Hour A Day (Wiley, 2012), Google Analytics Essential Training (Lynda.com, 2011) and technical editor of several works, among them Performance Marketing with Google Analytics (Wiley, 2010), Google AdWords Essential Training (Lynda.com, 2011), and Google Website Optimizer Essential Training (Lynda.com, 2010) As a Principal, he has worked with dozens of Fortune 500 companies, such as Google, Chevron, Intel, NBC, Papa John’s, National Geographic, Time Warner, Universal Music, DeVry University, and others, to improve the effectiveness of their online presence through results-oriented, data-driven optimization. Corey holds a degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois and has been involved in Internet-related engineering and consulting for over 15 years, beginning his career in the NCSA labs that developed the world’s first web browser. Corey is a proud husband and father of three children and enjoys sailboat racing, downhill skiing, and photography. He is involved on a volunteer basis with the University of Illinois and the local Emergency Response Team.