Indexing Facebook – A search engine perspective
I can remember the days when search engines reported that they would only index the most useful and authoritative pages from each website to ensure a quality search experience by reducing duplicate pages.
I’m sure this statement doesn’t apply anymore as I see more and more exclusions to this rule.
Maybe the competitiveness between engines to sharpen their algorithm tactics moves the focus away from user experience and the quality of the indexes?
Some interesting facts about search engines and Facebook.
Google has indexed 1.7bn pages from Facebook, Yahoo has indexed 2.1bn pages and Bing has indexed just 199m!
As Microsoft runs the Yahoo index, if Google were to reduce the number of Facebook indexed pages, the share of Facebook activity would dramatically reduce as Google provides around 60% plus of search in the UK.
Google strategists looking to dominate more of the social context of the web surely must see this?
Most Facebook users run a separate browsing session to “google” stuff that’s on Facebook, because lets face it, the Facebook search system sucks! Even the inclusion of Bings’ web results does not help the search experience.
Good or bad, I do think that Google can single handedly shrink the social uptake of Facebook, whilst it continues to pursue its own social strategy.
