AF: “While there was a lot of speculation about Facebook’s search strategy, the company has confirmed with us that ‘all Open Graph-enabled web pages will show up in search when a user likes them‘. Earlier this week we published about the new Facebook SEO that’s possible via the Open Graph, but now it’s clear that this is the beginning of Facebook’s internet search strategy. The race is now on for publishers to optimize their sites for Facebook’s search engine. … While we suggested that the like had just replaced the link, it has now become abundantly clear what Facebook’s intentions are. Facebook wants to launch the social semantic search engine as we alluded to during f8. Now that the search results are officially showing up as Facebook search results, the war has begun. – We’d expect a lot of developments in this space to emerge over the coming days, weeks, and months. We’ll be following Facebook’s entry into search closely. ”
AF: “If we were truly to take the war analogy further, the reality is that Facebook can do anything they want and right now Google has few ways of fighting back. The search results are simply one step in Facebook’s continuous evolution of search, so perhaps this was simply the building one boat as part of an entire battlefleet. More boats are coming though and a war will be fought (enough of the analogy!). As Facebook finalizes their ‘Great Wall’, the company is now pushing their new search strategy forward.”
FC: “So how will this affect Google and, to a lesser extent, Yahoo and Bing? Probably not so much, although you might see Bing, with its superior travel search, suffering a little. The reason is this: Facebook’s Open Graph Search will do wonders for the leisure industry (and Justin Beiber merchandise sites) because, if lots of people Like a hotel’s website, then it’ll go to the top of the Facebook search. What you won’t see on the Big Blue ‘Book will be the more mundane stuff, such as health clinics, and services such as mortuaries. This is where Google will clear up.”
Atlantic: “3 Reasons Facebook’s New Search Isn’t a Threat to Google. – First, only pages that use the Open Graph protocol will show up in a Facebook search, according to the All Facebook report. Anyone without a ‘like’ button is excluded. That might add an incentive to add the buttons, but it also means Facebook is leaving out large swaths of the Internet. … Second, Google also has its own (admittedly less accurate) way of gauging user interest: tracking clicks. Granted, everyone clicks on links that end up being useless, but the practice of tracking them still gives the search engine some rough sense of subjective interest. … Finally there’s also the fact that subjective interest just isn’t always the best indicator of a good result. If I conduct a search for ‘BP oil spill,’ chances are the most “liked” links won’t be the latest news stories that I’m looking for, but anti-BP screeds. The emotional response to any issue or individual could skew the search results away from the topic at hand and to the response.”
SEL: “Has Facebook become an important – even critical – marketing vehicle and promotional tool? Absolutely. Is its search engine going to challenge Google in the near term? Not a chance – at least not without radical change and improvement. – As Danny said to me in an email and a comment on the aimClear blog, ‘If this is declaring war on Google, Facebook’s starting out by sending a boat against a battle fleet.‘”
AF: “In the grand scheme of things, Facebook has a long way to go in search. However to ignore the company’s latest actions to push out the Open Graph as the basis of their search strategy would be foolish. Facebook is rapidly moving toward becoming the largest internet site in the world. Google didn’t attempt to buy the company years back for no reason. Google also isn’t pushing out new social and semantic features for no reason at all. – Facebook will be a significant threat to Google and while Google may still be the leader in search, Facebook will rapidly gain traction.“
Gerrit Eicker 06:44 on 28. June 2010 Permalink |
AF: “While there was a lot of speculation about Facebook’s search strategy, the company has confirmed with us that ‘all Open Graph-enabled web pages will show up in search when a user likes them‘. Earlier this week we published about the new Facebook SEO that’s possible via the Open Graph, but now it’s clear that this is the beginning of Facebook’s internet search strategy. The race is now on for publishers to optimize their sites for Facebook’s search engine. … While we suggested that the like had just replaced the link, it has now become abundantly clear what Facebook’s intentions are. Facebook wants to launch the social semantic search engine as we alluded to during f8. Now that the search results are officially showing up as Facebook search results, the war has begun. – We’d expect a lot of developments in this space to emerge over the coming days, weeks, and months. We’ll be following Facebook’s entry into search closely. ”
AF: “If we were truly to take the war analogy further, the reality is that Facebook can do anything they want and right now Google has few ways of fighting back. The search results are simply one step in Facebook’s continuous evolution of search, so perhaps this was simply the building one boat as part of an entire battlefleet. More boats are coming though and a war will be fought (enough of the analogy!). As Facebook finalizes their ‘Great Wall’, the company is now pushing their new search strategy forward.”
FC: “So how will this affect Google and, to a lesser extent, Yahoo and Bing? Probably not so much, although you might see Bing, with its superior travel search, suffering a little. The reason is this: Facebook’s Open Graph Search will do wonders for the leisure industry (and Justin Beiber merchandise sites) because, if lots of people Like a hotel’s website, then it’ll go to the top of the Facebook search. What you won’t see on the Big Blue ‘Book will be the more mundane stuff, such as health clinics, and services such as mortuaries. This is where Google will clear up.”
Atlantic: “3 Reasons Facebook’s New Search Isn’t a Threat to Google. – First, only pages that use the Open Graph protocol will show up in a Facebook search, according to the All Facebook report. Anyone without a ‘like’ button is excluded. That might add an incentive to add the buttons, but it also means Facebook is leaving out large swaths of the Internet. … Second, Google also has its own (admittedly less accurate) way of gauging user interest: tracking clicks. Granted, everyone clicks on links that end up being useless, but the practice of tracking them still gives the search engine some rough sense of subjective interest. … Finally there’s also the fact that subjective interest just isn’t always the best indicator of a good result. If I conduct a search for ‘BP oil spill,’ chances are the most “liked” links won’t be the latest news stories that I’m looking for, but anti-BP screeds. The emotional response to any issue or individual could skew the search results away from the topic at hand and to the response.”
SEL: “Has Facebook become an important – even critical – marketing vehicle and promotional tool? Absolutely. Is its search engine going to challenge Google in the near term? Not a chance – at least not without radical change and improvement. – As Danny said to me in an email and a comment on the aimClear blog, ‘If this is declaring war on Google, Facebook’s starting out by sending a boat against a battle fleet.‘”
AF: “In the grand scheme of things, Facebook has a long way to go in search. However to ignore the company’s latest actions to push out the Open Graph as the basis of their search strategy would be foolish. Facebook is rapidly moving toward becoming the largest internet site in the world. Google didn’t attempt to buy the company years back for no reason. Google also isn’t pushing out new social and semantic features for no reason at all. – Facebook will be a significant threat to Google and while Google may still be the leader in search, Facebook will rapidly gain traction.“