Is Facebook Search Expanding Its Range? A Concern For Traditional Search Engines?
It seems that the search used inside the social service Facebook is trying to expand its horizons. Many industry experts have been using the search inside Facebook and finding results that appear to be linked to outside websites, but there seems to be much confusion about what decides which external websites are selected. The listings appear to be including elements of local search. There seems to be a relationship with the “Like” button that Facebook is encouraging, but there does appear to be doubt and confusion surrounding the “Like” button.
It seems to be obvious that a search inside Facebook will only reference external websites that have been referenced inside Facebook, although the service is apparently developing a relationship with Bing which the recent changes in its current search would appear to interfere. To a company using search engine optimisation plans, and to dedicated search optimization companies there is a concern as to how much this matters.
On the face of it, any search performed inside Facebook or any other social service is beyond the reach of search optimization because it uses different factors, but if there is that relationship developing with Bing then it may no longer be a problem. Any attempts to elevate the organic search engine positioning for the pages of your company’s website can have an effect across several search engines, although many search optimization specialists tend to refer to progress in terms of “Google page one”. This is useful shorthand, and a convenient reference point for measuring the alterations in placement, particularly when an optimization company bases its fees on achieving and preserving a Google page one search engine positioning.
It does seem sensible to continue making efforts in the direction of traditional search. It may be that the ideal customer for your enterprise is someone for whom the social networks are an irrelevance. Just because the social networks are fashionable now does not make a presence there vital for your enterprise. It is the nature of such networks to change more quickly because of the way that use of the service changes. There are recent statistics that indicate that there is now more time spent in so-called social sites than in search engines – but those statistics consider YouTube as a social service, which is misleading. YouTube is a way of sharing data of sorts, but not in the form one would normally regard as being social in the expected fashion. The search engines do not stand still ,but the essential nature of them does not change so much in the long term, and search engine optimisation can still be a sensible|useful promotional tool in the long term.
While Facebook and the other social services continue to direct promotional effort on the conventional search engines using search engine optimisation plans to elevatethe organic search engine positioning for the pages of your company’s website. The conventional search facility still has its place, and using search optimization plans will still make a difference.