The concept of “social search” has caused a lot of buzz in search engine marketing over the past few months as the three major search engines introduced their own approach to social networks.
Many people have wondered if it can be used to generate additional revenue from closer targeted, more relevant PPC ads, whilst others have questioned how search engine optimisation could be achieved in search results delivered on the basis of an individual’s social circle. However for the most part, features like Google’s Real-Time results have had a less than dramatic effect upon user behaviour on search.
At the same time though, Facebook, the web’s biggest social network, has been implementing and expanding its search features. Whilst the industry focuses on how Google and Bing make use of Facebook pages, it is possible that the social network itself is pioneering the concept of ‘social search’.
Although only a small improvement, the changes made to the ‘suggest’ feature on Facebook Search expands the social network reach beyond the user’s circle of friends. Now, autosuggest will fill in results of events, groups and pages that a user is connected with – even by several removes.
Facebook Engineer Wayne Kao explained the new addition on the company blog.
“Now as you’re typing in a query in the search bar, you will instantaneously see results not only the people, events, groups and pages you’re connected with but also the connections of your friends and globally relevant results.”
Importantly, Facebook search incorporates social relevancy into its results. For example if you type in “MGM” for the band “MGMT” then Kao says “you may see it as the first result in the drop-down menu because you or one of your friends is a fan of MGMT on Facebook.” Users can still click “see more results” to see the full results page.
This new factor for relevancy has long been hyped in search engine development but Facebook appears to be leading the way. As ComScore reports that over the past year Facebook’s traffic share has grown by more than two and a half times – and has become a more popular destination than Google’s search portal for U.S users – developments on the social network could have an important effect on the future of search.
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