Did Google ban Twitter corporate pages from search results?

Like any curious or ambitious blogger, we like to see where we rank in the search engines. Since the content here is best categorized as Twitter marketing information, that’s what we usually check.

At first, everything seemed normal. Lot’s of articles on the topic as you’d expect. A guest post on Andy Beal’s (http://twitter.com/andybeal) Marketing Pilgrim titled “200+ Internet Marketing Gurus on Twitter” tops the list. ‘Marketing’ is in the domain, Twitter and marketing are in the title, it’s certainly on topic and has lot’s of links going to it. Wasn’t too surprised.

Then come some others that… hmm.. okay, I can see.

LameTwitterMarketing.com, Dosh Dosh’s article ‘Twitter Marketing: Why You Don’t Need to Mass Follow Twitter Users‘ (totally agree btw!) – these I can also understand.

Then there are some that really don’t belong, like a Craigslist post currently at #7.

Then it dawned on me. Where the heck is Twitter.com?! Search Google for ‘Google marketing’ and Google is #1. ‘Microsoft marketing’ #1 goes to a Microsoft.com page. Facebook gets #2. Yahoo #1.

So where is Twitter when you search for ‘Twitter marketing’? Would you believe #24?! That’s right, page 3. If you’re reading this, I’m sure that you’re familiar with the traffic that goes to the sites on page 3 versus page 1. Astounding.

How could Twitter let this happen?!

Here’s the kicker. That #24 result… goes to a Twitter user profile page that’s promoting a way to “Become a Marketing Expert with Twitter Traffic Machine”. Nothing to do with corporate, and even worse, it’s promoting something that could degrade the service.

Other sites on top of an actual page from Twitter include:
twitip.com
twitterholic.com
tweamr.com (woo hoo!)

And you’ve got to love this, an article on ezinearticles.com with the opening sentence…

If anyone should know about the power of Twitter marketing online and using social media sites for greater exposure, it should be chiropractors.

You can’t make that stuff up.

So where is Twitter’s corporate page ranked in Google? Not in the top 100, so it doesn’t really matter. The results on Yahoo! are a little different. A Twitter user comes in at a respectable #2, but the corporate site is still absent.

What I can’t figure out is that we know Twitter understands SEO. Search Google for your name. If you’re on Twitter, odds are your Twitter profile page will be right up there at the top along with LinkedIn.

Got a theory? I’d love to hear it. Is Google intimidated enough to pull some search magic when it comes to Twitter? Is Twitter intentionally holding off on any kind of marketing messaging until they have their business model fleshed out?

Whatever it is, I know one thing… I’m heading over to make sure I optimize the copy in my profile page!