Facebook ready to jump on the SEO bandwagon?
On Tuesday WebProNews reported that Facebook had been granted a search based patent. Although they applied for the patent back in 2004, good planning probably.
Facebook is no longer, and hasn’t been for a while, a place for university students to chat and share photos, it’s become a society. A mini culture that, not only groups of friends join but businesses and brands. If it continues to constantly attract companies to its Pages section then Facebook will have a lot of search authority.
We’ve been talking about Facebook and its SEO potential quite a bit over the last few months and I don’t know if I’m in the minority but I am not a massive fan of Facebook. I find it annoying, frustrating and not that intuitive. I don’t think by becoming a search engine it would improve or make me want to use it more.
I think the people that use Google, Yahoo and Bing are of a broader demographic than the people that use Facebook. If a receptionist needs to book a hotel for their boss in a Birmingham are they going to log into Facebook and have a look through there or are they more likely to do a quick search in Google/Yahoo/Bing? The search engine of course, this is a fact*.
So although I think Facebook would have potential as a search engine I don’t think it could ever steal Google’s crown. It could steal the younger internet users who are attached to their accounts but never take the SEO kingdom.
*Hypothetical fact
