Last night AllFacebook.com – The Unofficial blog of all things Facebook, reported the company could be testing a new web search feature at the top of their pages. The search box which would more than likely direct traffic to Bing due to Microsoft’s relationship with Facebook could be a game changer in the search industry which is dominated by Google. However I can imagine this wouldn’t come cheap; Bing would have to pay a substantial amount to have its search engine on such a valuable property like Facebook. This isn’t new to Social Networking; Google was willing to spend millions per year on MySpace allowing its users to have access to search within the site when it was in its peak.
Could Facebook be looking at another revenue stream, before its IPO next year? According to the Search Engine Land who Facebook contacted last night, they have not been testing this feature and have said that they user who posted this screenshot could in-fact been infected with malware.
See the full statement below
“We are not testing the placement of a separate web search field and have no plans to do so. We believe the second search field or “Search the Web” box appeared on peoples’ accounts as the result of unknown actions by a third party targeting the browser (potentially a browser plugin or malware) unrelated to Facebook. If people think their browser may have been affected by malware, we offer a remediation process which includes a free browser-based virus scanning tool built by McAfee. Users are required to run this Scan and Repair tool and clean their machines of malware before accessing their account.”
This could be true, however I’m not sure if I’m buying it. Bing will continue to be a major player in the search industry and a deal like this could have a significant impact especially with Facebook’s continued growth. I wouldn’t count them out just yet, many people focus primarily on Google when implementing a SEO or Online Marketing strategy, and this is not recommended, something as small as the addition of a search feature in Facebook could shake up the industry over night !
Matthew Marley
360innovate
Tags: bing, facebook, google, Online Marketing, seo
