Facebook profiles in the Google index

Social networking or rather socialising site Facebook is going to be encouraging users to make their profiles available in search engines. This is a no-brainer move for Facebook to get a lot more exposure in organic search listings and increase it’s traffic.

However information appearing on Facebook is in many ways a lot more sensitive and personal than on sites such as LinkedIn used to expose one’s resume and build professional connections. So if you don’t want competitors or future employers to be able to easily find you and your friends on Google or other search engines then you need to adjust your privacy settings. Go to Privacy > Search > and untick the “Allow my public search listing to be indexed by external search engines” box.

Happy hiding.



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  • 2 Comments so far

    1. Dale of SEO Grader September 5th, 2010 12:14 pm

      Another way to tread on the toes of those that expect a little privacy using social networking tools.

    2. George Harnett July 19th, 2011 5:59 pm

      Interesting thoughts. At the time I thought it may be a bad move but now we realise it was worthwhile, especially from a marketing point of view.

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