Google in a very convenient manner tweeted about getting Facebook Fanpage updates on to its real time search results. The news doesn’t have exceeding implications for both Facebook and Google, or at least not as much as it would be for brands and publishers who run Facebook pages. (Source:Digitalbeat)
This follows the recent spate of deals by Bing and Google earlier with Twitter, that of Bing’s deal with Facebook much (much) before that, and Yahoo’s recent deal making with Twitter, Facebook and Dailymotion. Of course enough has been said about how important it is for search engines to add real time results, and the past year has been filled with action on this front. No one of course has garnered any significant steps in doing it better than the other yet though.
Google’s own deal is not a big one in terms of reach for it can only access Fan pages on not public updates like Bing can. The deal essentially happened in December but went live now. What makes the news important though like I mentioned above is how publishers will begin to tap into this. Managing Facebook pages and updating its content suddenly becomes part of a company’s SEO. This point is best illustrated by Danny Sullivan in his comprehensive post on how the deal would impact search results, make sure you read it.
The Impact on Search
I recently wrote on the need for search engines to alter itself from being just content discovery tools to product discovery ones. On a tangential note, some of the points I mentioned then is very important in the context of what I feel about today’s news in general. While a predominant portion of the post went into saying how discovery tools have to move from information points to decision points, its foundation was on these tools losing control and the relevance of public (not user) generated content. Let’s hold this thought.
SEO in general with the immense expertise that go into it has manipulated if not corrupted search to an extent. And this is a personal user perspective and not that of a guy from the industry. For instance, when WATBlog had posted last year that you can stream cricket online for a series, it shouldn’t have been the first Google result, the streaming site should have been. The difference between content and product discovery in basic.
I have a feeling that this deal will only give rise to more manipulated content on Facebook fan pages with a clear eye on search results. This is so because pages are controlled by brands or more often agencies of brands and web publishers who’s eyes are always on traffic. Facebook Content Optimized for Google and not necessarily for the users or fans is quite a possibility. Where does that leave both Google and Facebook then? Purely on the above argument I feel both FB and big G are losing out than gaining from the deal from a user satisfaction perspective.
This isn’t the case with Bing though because it gets to index all public status updates which is the actual real time search, complete user voice. That’s a much better real time deal compared to Google’s.
Other Implications
Of course, while the above points are highly debatable there’s no denying that Facebook fan pages will now see more relevance from brands. It will see more updated content, it will see targeted content. This will mean companies might have to get on board with YouTube videos or blog content so that they generate enough content to keep sharing. This will also mean people are more likely to see hot deals, discounts and even news bits a lot more often on their Facebook streams.
Interesting twist this news has brought this morning to the world of information and information flow on the web.
