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Loading ...As Facebook was enjoying an enormous growth in popularity this past summer in both popularity and new members, there was some grumbling that it’s platform was to restrictive for those inside that wanted to give their information exposure and for those on the outside who wanted to take a peek inside.
We also had what many consider to be America’s most prestigious newspaper, The New York Times, have something called “Time Select”, which placed key content behind unsearchable walls. Only those willing to pay could access it. That is, only those who valued the NYTimes as a news resource and would head over to the site. But what the Times didn’t realize in its arrogance was that there’s a heckuva lotta other new sources on the internet with a click of a mouse. Through a search engine that is.
So both companies made a good business decision. Facebook has lowered the wall and will allow search engines to take a peek inside. People can still opt out an have their profiles shielded from the outside world, but that’s going to be the exception as opposed to the rule. And the Times has now done away with their experiment, giving us all now the privilidge of accessing and reading the Grey Lady.
What this shows us is the continual importance of establishing a strong SEO presence. It shows that the likely most important reason to go online is still to get information that we want. It shows that Google and Yahoo and others are the gateways.
Now, not every profile on Facebook needs exposure. But as a whole, this relatively new but very influential site found it essential. As did the self-described most important newspaper in the country.
SEO gives you access to what you want: customers, visitors, users, and, $$$.
Filed under: Conversation Marketing, Facebook, Industry Reputation, Marketing, Marketing Hubris, Markets are Conversations, Media Consultancy, SEO, SEO and SEM, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Reputation Management, Search Engine Strategy, Search Engines, search
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Agreed.
But I doubt Facebook opened up their walls for the SEO benefit (although I’m sure they’ll consider it icing on the cake).
Facebook is positioning itself as a platform for life & business and they understand the key concepts of the new eCommerce.
To put it simply, in Facebook’s terms, Friend don’t buy from Friends…
Michael Valiant
http://MichaelValiant.com
True, indeed. But making it searchable makes in more likely that more people will join as they see profiles of people they know.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out over the next year. I’ve already seen a few facebook profiles pop up in Google, but since I don’t know the people, it wouldn’t entice me to join facebook (assuming I wasn’t already there of course)
There’s enough link power to possibly make facebook the next wikipedia, in so far as in 8 months you may see Facebook profile pages popping up for all sorts of searches; but I doubt it.
Facebook profile pages aren’t interlinked with each other. And in Google’s eyes, they are going to be very similar from one to the next, so duplicate filtering may come into it.
Also, outside the tech saavy 20% - Do people actually search for other people (friends and family) on Google? (the only time finding a facebook profile would actually be useful!)
Michael Valiant
Opps…
I want to make one correction to my previous comment. I just went and looked at my own facebook profile in Google and it does indeed offer a link to see my friends (I had mentioned that the pages weren’t interlinked, but they obviously are).
But I still think the lack of uniquness (only name, image and link to friends page are different) from one profile page to the next is going to hurt them in the Serps.
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