What You Need to Know About Facebook’s Graph Search

Facebook’s Graph Search is set to be one of the three pillars of the powerful social network.

In the world of online social networking, comprehensive search functionality has been an elusive Holy Grail of sorts for developers. With terabytes of user-generated content waiting to be unearthed, indexed and discovered by the magic of information retrieval, major social networks and search engine providers have been working on possible solutions that would not only enhance user experience but can also be monetized.

Facebook Graph Search is a beta feature that aims to improve upon the current limited search functionality in the social network. This is an example of how it currently works for beta testers: A consumer who is looking for a law firm with an Athens accountant can enter those parameters on the new search bar and expect matches organized according to people, pictures, places and interests.

The online marketing angle

What Facebook aims to accomplish with Graph Search is something similar to what Microsoft has been busy implementing on its Bing decision engine with the Social Media Sidebar, which is a truly personalized search engine results page (SERP) that is based on social signals in addition to content. This should be of interest to legal professionals who rely on search engine optimization and Internet marketing to drum up business.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has already labeled Graph Search as one of the three pillars of the social network, with the other two being News and Timeline. The massive popularity of Facebook is a major reason SEO practitioners are paying close attention to Graph Search. In essence, this is more about the launch of a new search engine with built-in popularity that will augment Bing, another search engine worth optimizing for. This is a wake-up call for law firms that have not paid too much attention to their Facebook business page in terms of content and social signals since those two factors are bound to feature prominently once Graph Search comes out of beta.