This week’s launch of Facebook Graph Search could pose one of the most feasible threats to Google’s domininace yet. Edward Cowell, Search Engine Optimisation Director and global agency Netbooster, looks at the implications.
Is it a threat, maybe, but Google is hugely entrenched into peoples day to day lives. Is it an interesting exercise in rewriting the rulebook for search, very.
Comparing Facebook Graph search to Google is like comparing apples and pears, both businesses are coming at search from totally different directions.
Instead of using links to work out what’s relevant Facebook Graph uses likes and users other connections. However it is back filled by BING to provide normal web results where the graph does not yield anything.
Bing’s statement is quite interesting on this. That definitely sounds like a threat to Google although it definitely depends on how many users embrace this for the purposes of external search and not just trying to find ‘friends of friends who are single in the local area’.
As part of this product, our two engineering teams worked together to advance a unified search experience. That means that when people want to search beyond Facebook, they see web search results from Bing with social context and additional information such as Facebook pages.”
http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2013/01/15/sof.aspx
By Edward Cowell
Search Engine Optimisation Director
Netbooster