Google to introduce real-time search and 'hot topics' features

Google users will be able to better track developing stories

Google has added a new search feature that the company hopes will improve its ability to return results on breaking news and developing information.

The company said that it would be updating the search engine to return "real time" search results, speeding up the time it takes for items from Twitter feeds, blog posts and news sites to appear as search results.

The real-time search result push is being aimed in particular at breaking news stories. The company hopes that by speeding up the addition of new material, information on breaking news from Twitter or news services can be available to Google search queries within seconds of being posted.

"Our real-time search features are based on more than a dozen new search technologies that enable us to monitor more than a billion documents and process hundreds of millions of real-time changes each day," wrote Google Fellow Amit Singhal in a company blog posting.

In addition to the real time search feature, the company also updated the Google Trends service. The query-tracking service will be updated to include a new "hot topics" feature that tracks the words and terms which are currently most popular with publishers.

The addition of the "hot topics" feature comes as Google has announced that Trends will transition from being a Labs project to being a fully-recognised Google product.

The new features also come in the midst of a major update for Google's popular Wave service. Monday's acquisition of AppJet could bolster Wave's text-sharing capabilities.