This happened more than a year ago, according to the report. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg declined to discuss the matter, telling those Microsoft executives that the company had too much else to focus on. Neither Google nor Facebook spokespeople would comment officially on the matter.

The report cements the suspicion that some within Microsoft, at least, are not convinced of Bing’s strategic importance to the company, though Ballmer has long said Microsoft is in the search game for the long haul. In Microsoft’s most recent earnings report, it said its online services division, which houses Bing and AdCenter, brought in revenue of $747 million, resulting in a loss of $479 million. Still, that was roughly $300 million better compared to the previous year, when it lost $776 million.

Meanwhile, Facebook’s most recent S-1 shows a slowing of its meteoric growth, causing speculation about what it needs to do — get into the search advertising business, perhaps? — to resume a growth trajectory that will satisfy investors.

Though Google definitely sees Facebook as a threat, with the launch of Google+ largely seen as a reaction to that threat, Microsoft has had a much cozier relationship with Facebook. Earlier this week, the companies announced a $550 million patents deal, in which Microsoft sold 650 patents to Facebook. Interestingly, those patents will help Facebook protect itself from a lawsuit filed by Yahoo, another Microsoft partner. (This was the original topic of the New York Times story, and The Business Insider called out the acknowledgement of Microsoft trying to sell Bing.)

Back in 2007, Microsoft made a $240 million investment in Facebook. At that time, there was much speculation about Microsoft acquiring Facebook.

Who Competes with Google?

This question of who competes with Google — and is the market in fact competitive — is central to the analysis of European and US regulators as the antitrust investigations wind their way through “the system” and potentially to the courts. Google sees many more competitors than do its critics and has been trying for several years to widen the scope of the discussion about “search competition.”

If we open the aperture to include vertical sites with a search box (e.g., Yelp, Kayak, Truila) the world looks a great deal more competitive than if we only look at web search engines, which is what most ordinary consumers think when they hear the term “search engine.”

In the latter category there is Google, Bing, Blekko and DuckDuckGo. Blekko and DDG have negligible share. Bing’s share is an essentially flat 29 percent (when combined with Yahoo). In international markets such as China, Japan and Russia Google is the underdog. However in some markets, in Europe and elsewhere around the world, Google’s share of search is larger than in the US.

66 Percent or 83 Percent?

In contrast to the comScore data immediately above, the Pew Internet & American Life Project recently found that Google was the preferred search engine of 83 percent of US survey respondents. Based on a survey of roughly 2,200 US adults, Pew observed that “Fully 83% of searchers use Google more often than any other search engine.  Yahoo is a very distant second at just 6%.”

Many regulators and political officials, encouraged by anti-Google lobbying from rivals, have concluded that Google is simply too powerful and has too much control over the online ecosystem. Whether there are legal grounds for a finding of antitrust liability against Google is a different matter, but I do believe the Europeans will bring some kind of anti-competition case against the company. In addition, the various investigations going on at the federal and state levels against Google could also result in an action in the US.

This is where Facebook comes in.

Specter of Facebook Search Helps Google

The idea that Facebook is developing a search engine that might attract some usage away from Google is precisely the kind of development that could save Google’s bacon — so to speak. The “everyone competes against us” defense that appears in the Bork article and that Google has floated several times is unlikely to be persuasive. What will be much more persuasive is the argument that the world’s largest social network will be bringing search to its 900+ million users around the globe.

Recall when the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was deciding whether to approve or block Google’s proposed $750 million acquisition of AdMob two years ago. I was one of the many dozens of people interviewed by regulators on the matter. My inference from the interview process and questions I received was that the FTC was predisposed to block the deal. Indeed, from all accounts it appeared that the FTC was going to file suit against the Google acquisition — until Apple bought Quattro Wireless.

Here’s an excerpt from the FTC’s public statement about its decision not to attempt to block the acquisition, explicitly citing Quattro as the basis of its rationale:

The Federal Trade Commission has closed its investigation of Google’s proposed acquisition of mobile advertising network company AdMob after thoroughly reviewing the deal and concluding that it is unlikely to harm competition in the emerging market for mobile advertising networks.

In a statement issued today, the Commission said that although the combination of the two leading mobile advertising networks raised serious antitrust issues, the agency’s concerns ultimately were overshadowed by recent developments in the market, most notably a move by Apple Computer Inc. – the maker of the iPhone – to launch its own, competing mobile ad network.

Facebook Like Apple for Google’s Legal Team

The FTC probably decided not that the market would actually be more competitive but that Apple buying Quattro had complicated its arguments and weakened its case.

Facebook is now analogous to Apple in that it provides a potential argument that the search market is competitive, and soon could be come more so if the company launches an improved search capability (whether for site search or the web more broadly). Indeed, Google’s legal team will wave the BusinessWeek article as evidence that the search market is highly dynamic, unpredictable and could change overnight.

And that might be just what Google needs to escape the antitrust noose.

It’s clear that Facebook needs better internal search. Right now the search function at the top of the page is not very useful. Improving Facebook site search seems to be the first objective of an internal team, led by former Googler Lars Rasmussen, according to BusinessWeek;

Searching the social network could get a lot better in the near future. About two dozen Facebook engineers, led by a former Google engineer named Lars Rasmussen, are working on an improved search engine, say two people familiar with the project who did not want to be named because the company is in a quiet period ahead of its IPO. The goal, they say, is to help users better sift through the volume of content that members create on the site, such as status updates, and the articles, videos, and other information across the Web that people “like” using Facebook’s omnipresent thumbs-up button.

Better Site Search Would Increase Query Volumes

There’s no question that an improved search capability would benefit Facebook in several ways. It would encourage more search activity among users, who would be rewarded with a better experience, creating a self-reinforcing cycle. It would also create a PPC ad opportunity that is probably too lucrative for Facebook to ignore.

Facebook could sell contextual or keyword-based PPC ads in search results. There’s probably pent-up demand for such a program. It’s a natural for the site and a monetization opportunity that Facebook will be compelled to adopt.

Facebook Not Likely to Directly Challenge Google

It’s unlikely in the near term that Facebook would seek to challenge Google directly in web search. The first reason is the company’s relationship with Bing, which prevents the move in the near term at least. The second reason is that it would take a huge resource commitment from Facebook. There’s enormous exposure there; consider how much Microsoft has been losing over a period of years in trying to catch Google.

Yet Facebook doesn’t need to challenge Google directly in web search. Improving search on the Facebook site — including a better layout and presentation of results — wouldn’t be anywhere as difficult as general web search. It would also be welcomed by users — and certainly by advertisers, provided there were PPC opportunities. And I would almost guarantee some version of paid-search advertising on Facebook is “on the roadmap.”

Hundreds of Millions in Revenue “on the Table”

According to the BusinessWeek article (using comScore data) Facebook users performed 336 million search queries in February.  If Facebook fixed search that number would immediately go up and could translate into hundreds of millions of dollars in new annual revenue for the company. Institutional investors will all but demand such a move after the IPO.

In the recently released Local Search Usage Study from comScore, Localeze and agency 15 Miles, the data reflect that “use of social networking sites for local business searches has increased 67 percent since 2010.” With better Facebook site search those numbers would likely only get bigger.

Eric Enge performed the interview for Stone Temple and didn’t pull any punches on social indicators or author authority.  Microsoft was surprisingly open with their results, which made for a refreshing read.  Some main highlights from the interview were:

Social Indicators

Yiu was straightforward when talking about how Bing did relying on social sites to enhance their results.  He stated multiple times that it social is synergistic with search, but not a standalone indicator that will replace search.  Yiu gave a great quote when describing Bing’s Social Search:

“So today, the algorithm is flavored by people.”

When describing how people like content that can be seen by others in the search results Yiu also stated:

“We are trying to merge a little bit of the search and browsing intent into one, and have your friends help you navigate the web a little bit better. In a way we are bringing the office water cooler to the search engine.”

Yiu also stressed the importance of fresh content in search results.  Being a former member of the Yahoo Search team, it has always been a goal to match fresh content to a user and a query and that is a goal of Bing’s Social Search.  This is something that is continually being improved as well.  Enge brought up a great example of social search for the New York Post that was showing a few months back that is no longer in place.  Yiu pointed to engagement metrics as a reason why social search may change so much.  If people aren’t using the results, they are no longer enhancing the product:

“If the content doesn’t earn its spot, its placement gets modified.”

A few other key take aways on social indicators were:

• Friends social data get premium placement
• Friends of friends get special treatment
• Bing holds the maximum number of social enhanced results to three
• Conversations are not currently pulled into the search results

Author Authority

The most fascinating portion of the interview in my mind was Enge’s round of questioning on Author Authority.  Always a hot topic, Yiu did a great job of providing answers that should give marketers a big heads up on how to bolster their own authority on social search.

Yiu mentioned that spamming and gaming the system is a min attribute that Bing looks for and that the way people are connected and their networks help to flag spam.  He stated:

“We look at the way people are connected, and often we correlate that to the quality of a Tweet. We can also analyze the content the Twitter account links to. What does that mix look like, and how do people interact with the content you are tweeting. That’s just on the Twitter side of things.

On the Facebook side in a way we are still working on it; with Facebook most of the time it’s your true identity. On Facebook right now is just stuff from your friends, so it’s a different problem.”

Other signals that goes into the author authority on Bing are:

• Ratio of followers to following
• Retweets
• Sharing (as a strong indicator than just a like)
• Having good followers
• Following good accounts
• Tweeting about relevant topics
• Authority and Relevance of Retweeters

Perhaps even more staggering: the growth rate of their mobile traffic actually exceeded their US growth rate last year (17% vs 16%).

With US smartphone penetration now past 50% (likely to reach 65% by year-end), mobile devices are simply how your Facebook profile is consumed!

Meanwhile, for most of the 4 million businesses with Facebook Page profiles, Facebook’s mobile-friendly version acts as the only “mobile website” they’ll have to drive consumers to for the next 12 months or so.

So as consumers and businesses increasingly think “mobile first” about Facebook, here are a few tips to optimize your Facebook to drive more likes, friends, reach, and engagement with mobile users:

Mobile Organic Search

Pepsi's Facebook Profile on Page 1 of Google

Strange as it may sound, your Facebook page has to be easy to find in Google. Mobile searchers aren’t clicking through to Page 2, ever. You need to be on Page 1 for brand queries at the very least.

Here are some powerful tactics to try:

• You already link from your desktop site to your Facebook profile. Include your brand name as your link anchor text, instead of the usual “Find us on Facebook.”

• Include a few choice keywords in your profile name. This optimizes the title and URL of your Facebook profile for keyword matches. (Note: If you’ve got more than 100 fans, you can manually request a change to your profile. But be careful as this could backfire if you overdo it.)

• Take advantage of your Facebook profile’s text fields (like “about” and “description”) to add important descriptive keywords. Be human, not spammy.

  If you’re a local merchant, quote some reviews from your Google Places or Yelp profiles, and let that keyword-rich user-generated content start working to increase the relevance of your profile.

• Link to your Facebook profile from your other social profiles, like Google Plus, Linked-In, or Yelp. As above, always include your brand name in the anchor text on networks that will allow it (eg, Google Plus, Linked-In).

Even Pepsi's #1 Google Listing Drives Mobile Searchers to Facebook

• When linking between profiles, don’t link to your Facebook profile URL. Setup branded redirect “tracking” links instead (like target.com/facebook). Then you can measure how much activity each profile drives to your Facebook, and vice versa. You have no other way of measuring this across third-party sites. It’s especially useful for monitoring crawler activity on your Facebook.

• If you have a new or smaller site, you may be better off focusing on getting your Facebook profile ranking in mobile SERPs than your own website. Do a classic PageRank comparison between your Facebook profile and your website. There are other factors, but you might be surprised by how much more link equity your Facebook page already has at its disposal.

Expect a few bumps in the road though.

Sure there are 155 million “m.facebook.com” pages indexed in Google with more “m.facebook.com” pages being folded into the mobile SERPs all the time.

Yet, Facebook has not yet begun serving mobile-friendly content to Google’s Smartphone bot. And I suspect rollout of Timeline will have some negative impact on crawlable profile content, and organic listing descriptions.

Mobile Paid Search

M&M's Point Mobile PPC at Facebook Page

More and more brands are using their Facebook profile as a mobile PPC landing page.

See the M&Ms example to the side. I can’t comment on their objectives or results, but I assume the campaign is producing better results than driving mobile searchers to their Flash website.

Here are some ways to maximize mobile engagement:

• Connect to the right mobile landing page. Facebook redirects non-logged-in smartphone users to the m.facebook.com “info” page. This will likely change later this year as Timeline is rolled out for mobile users.

  To drive mobile users to some other Facebook landing page, append the appropriate path (eg “?v=photos” or “?v=feed”) to the “m.facebook.com” profile URL (you have to specify “m.”).

• Be aware, when driving searchers to your mobile Facebook, the links often require the consumer to type a login and password to take action.

  Most consumers abandon at this step, which increases your cost of acquisition and lowers quality score.

• However, Facebook is also the most popular app on iOS and Android, and if consumers have the app installed, they’re already signed-in. One method to address this is to open your page on the Facebook app for iOS or Android using URL schemes (Facebook’s is fb://).

  

• To access your brand’s app profile, simply view source on your Facebook profile, and find your “page_id” code. You can then open the app to your “info” page using the scheme fb://profile/{page_id}. Voila!

Here’s an example for Search Engine Land: fb://profile/7138936668.

As you can see, it’s not a regular weblink. To see it in action on iOS or Android, scan the QR shortcut I’ve provided. If you’ve got Facebook, it will open. (Be sure to “like” Search Engine Land while you’re in there!)

It’s a cool trick.

The risk? Some users don’t have the app installed, and some platforms don’t recognize URL schemes. For these users, this produces a worse experience, not a better one.

At Pure Oxygen, we’ve developed technology to help consumers cross over the web-app chasm, using a technique that’s like progressive enhancement for links.

If they have the app installed, it opens the app (signed-in) to the brand page. If they don’t, it opens the browser page instead. The technology is in beta, but these links have already been effectively deployed in PPC campaigns, QR codes, and as web links.

M&M's Facebook on Mobile Web (Left) Requires Login to "Like." The App (Right) is Signed In

As their IPO filing clearly shows, mobile is not the future of Facebook – it’s now. Like water seeking its level, mobile consumers are already engaging brands that make their presence easy to find, accessible, and easy to engage. There’s a lot for mobile consumers to “like” about those that do!

How Linked Pages Look

With Linked Pages, you can add pages that will appear in association with your name or those of your friends, when those pages are viewed by you or others you are friends with on Facebook. For example, here’s how my page now looks, in a search for my name on Bing:

You can’t see any of the Linked Pages that I added because, as the first arrow shows, Bing changed the search to “daniel sullivan” and “danny sullivan,” which turns out to disable them. Worse, even though I’m signed in, and Bing knows who I am on Facebook and that I’ve already linked pages, it still prompts me to add them again.

If I use the link to change to search to only show “danny sullivan” matches, finally, the Linked Pages I added appear:

Adding Linked Pages To Friends

The arrow points to me. I added several Linked Pages in all. I also added one to Greg Sterling, one of my other editors here on Search Engine Land.

Who Sees These?

Logged out of Facebook, no Linked Pages appear to show up on Bing when you’re searching. But logged-in, it’s not entirely clear who sees these.

In my case, I’m pretty sure anyone I’m friends with will see all my Linked Pages, if they’re using Bing while signed-in to Facebook. I’m pretty sure others who aren’t friends with me won’t see them. But it’s not clear.

It’s less clear what happens with Greg. I added that link to his listing. Do only I see it? Do only my friends see it? Do only our mutual friends see it? Does anyone signed-in to Facebook see it?

I’d like more clarity about this, and I’m checking with Bing about it. Certainly the idea that people might start tagging pages you don’t want associated with your profile is kind of a pain. But that leads to the bigger issue in my mind, that to make Linked Pages work, Bing wants the keys to your Facebook account.

Bing Gets Permission To Do What?

Consider this message I got, when I used the feature:

To link pages to my profile, Bing needs permission to post to Facebook as me? To potentially post “status messages, notes, photos and videos” on my behalf?

That’s a lot of permission just to link a few pages to my profile. I can link pages to my Google+ Profile without granting any of these types of posting permissions to Google+. But Bing wants me to let a third-party have them all?

If you choose “Skip,” by the way, the feature won’t work. You won’t be able to post to Linked Pages at all, in my testing.

Look What’s On My Timeline

Sure enough, after granting the permission and linking one of my pages, I found this had been posted to my Facebook Timeline:

I actually added several pages, but Bing and/or Facebook has the smarts not to post them all. But still, why do I need or want it to post any of them? Why wasn’t I at least asked if I wanted that to happen.

Look What’s On My Friend’s Timeline

That leads me back to that page I added to Greg. According to Bing, he should get a notification that I’ve done this. Indeed, he even got this from my right on his timeline:

Since it’s Greg’s timeline, he can remove this, if he wants. But it’s kind of annoying. If you haven’t blocked your timeline from letting people post to it, anyone you’re friends with may start adding it with these links, not to mention adding anything to your Linked Page on Bing that other friends will see.

That would be fine if you were really friends with all your “friends” on Facebook, but many people are friends with coworkers or others that they aren’t necessarily that close to.

To me, there’s no reason why anyone shouldn’t be able to link pages they want to their own page without having to give Bing this type of permission. As for linking pages to your friends, that seems like a feature that should overtly ask your friends if they want to allow, not just happen if they haven’t proactively blocked posting to their wall.

Postscript: Bing tells us that technically, it doesn’t need to post to Facebook in order to create Linked Pages. However, it does this in order to:

• Allow you to express that you’ve added pages to your profile through announcements on your Facebook Timeline
• Notify friends if you’ve added links to their profiles via their Facebook Timelines and also via the Facebook notification system

Related Articles

• Bing Launches Linked Pages, Promises Better People Search Results
• Bing & Facebook See Deeper Search Integration With “Linked Pages”

A recently enacted law seeks to remove all such content from the internet in India. Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were sued under the law and had been arguing in Indian court that it was all but impossible for them to comply as a practical matter. The law makes online publishers potentially liable for the acts of individual users and third parties (think “offensive” blog hosted on Blogger or “objectionable” video uploaded to YouTube).

According to a BBC report Indian Communications Minister Kapil Sibal said the following in December about the desired impact of the new law:

My aim is that insulting material never gets uploaded. We will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue. [The companies] will have to give us the data, where these images are being uploaded and who is doing it.

Google, Facebook and others had argued that they had no control over individuals and should not be held liable for their conduct accordingly. They said they cannot “pre-filter” material generated by millions of users. This is what would be called a “prior restraint” against free speech in the US.

Indian courts have been unsympathetic and demanded that the companies comply or be blocked entirely “like in China.” The BBC says that the companies have now complied and removed offending material at issue in a particular civil lawsuit.

However the overly vague nature of the statute on which these claims are based almost guarantees that Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and other online publishers in India will face a steady stream of litigation from individuals or groups “offended” by this or that image, article or video.

Stock image used under license from Shutterstock

Related Entries

• Free Speech Battle In India: Google, Facebook Summoned By Court Over “Inflammatory Images”
• India Set To Bring Heavy Hand Of Censorship Down On Facebook, Google
• EU Ready To Impose Tough Privacy Rules On Google, Facebook
• US Government Makes Most Content Removal Requests To Google So Far in 2011

Beyond Blame, Believing In Cooperation

Let’s set aside blame, because blame isn’t going to move anything forward.

Let’s also assume that all the players can be taken to some degree at their word, that they do indeed want to work together in some ways.

What does everyone want?

The Wants & A Game Changer

Google has wanted its own social graph for some time. By social graph, I mean a way for it to see how people are interconnected, which could potentially improve Google’s search results. Better ways to target ads, new “sticky” content where people spend huge amounts of time are other things it wants, but let’s focus on the search aspects.

Twitter has wanted, well, clearly money along with other non-disclosed things for what is mistakenly assumed to be its most valuable asset, its “firehose” of tweets. What’s really Twitter’s most valuable asset is actually its sharing activity, but I’ll get back to that.

Facebook has wanted, well, I don’t know — maybe to be the best social network out there. Don’t laugh. If Google once had a laser-like focus on being the best search engine out there, Facebook can have the same focus on social. That’s a vision that Facebook probably doesn’t want ruined by Google encroaching on its territory. A vision that, of course, makes Facebook plenty of money by tapping into social actions.

We also now have something new that both Facebook and Twitter say they want — to be better represented in Google’s search results. It’s not as if they haven’t been there. But releasing today’s Don’t Be Evil bookmarklet — which alters the Google’s Search Plus Your World service — was a game changer in these Cold War years between the search and social superpowers.

The Bill Of Social Data Rights

Can everyone get what they want, all succeeding in their own ways, without further banging of virtual shoes in outrage?

I think they can. Or at least, I think there are some ways forward, some common ground that has emerged. I’ll lay these out in what I’ll call a Bill Of Social Data Rights. I’m open to better names, believe me — that name I know has been used for other things than I’m covering. But hopefully you get the point.

1) Public Is Public

If someone posts something public on a social network, that’s public for any search engine to index. It’s not up to Twitter or Facebook or Google+ to decide if Google or Bing get to index it through some special deal. The content of what was written belongs to the person who wrote it. If that person publishes publicly, then search engines can spider what they find.

Posts are, after all, web pages. People who create them can choose to block them from search engines if they want. People can choose to withdraw public posts after they’ve been published and know that, like with any web page, the posts will eventually be dropped from search engines.

Social networks have lots of content. Search engines like Google and Bing could bring them to a halt, if they tried to grab everything without special arrangements. So make the “firehose” arrangements, and make them on behalf of the users, who might actually want to find their own content in the search engines of their choice.

This helps solves, by the way, the concerns that Facebook and Twitter have raised about not being included enough in Google. Much of their content is included. Much more of it could be included, if deal making was set aside in favor of the Public Is Public principle.

2) Profiles Are Meta Data

If someone creates a public profile, certain types of information from that profile should be expressed in an easy, machine-readable format. Any social network should provide the profile’s name, the number of followers, the number of people being followed, as well as a flag to indicate if a profile is somehow verified or trusted. A trusted way to link that profile to other profiles or web sites should be implemented.

Search engines need this type of information, so that they really know who someone is, in order to return search results. That’s true even if the person is using a pseudonym. You still want to know that the pseudonym account that comes up is the right one, not some faker.

Providing meta data abut profiles will help. Search engines won’t have to guess where to scrape for key information such as follower counts, which can be used to tell if an account might be real or not, in the case of celebrities. Cross-linkage can help avoid problems that both Google and the Don’t Be Evil tool have, where Larry Page gets listed with Facebook and Twitter profiles that aren’t really his.

If Facebook and Twitter really want better inclusion in things like “People & Pages” listings at Google, this type of data will help. Similarly, if Bing wants to include Google+ profiles, it could use the information as well.

3) Your Friends Are Yours

If I have friends on one service, I should be able to import those friends in some machine-readable format to another service. That doesn’t mean a list of text names, as Facebook’s tool will kick out for me.

It might mean email addresses, as Facebook will give me for Yahoo or Microsoft but not for Google.

It really means some way that the geniuses at our social networks can concoct, I’m sure, so that if I want to find my Twitter friends at Google+, I can. If I want Path to know a particular Google+ circle of friends I have, I can do that. If Pinterest wants to know my Facebook friends, they are my friends to take — not Facebook’s to decide.

What is there really to fear, by allowing this? Even if I take my 50 friends to a new social network, if that social network is crap, no great victory has been won. Heck, taking the names doesn’t mean any of the 50 will actually follow me over.

4) Social Shares & Social Actions Are Proprietary

The real gem each of the social networks has isn’t our posts, isn’t our profiles, isn’t our friends. It’s knowing what we do, how we interact with our friends, how we interact with content.

That’s where the walls should remain. Facebook and Twitter, for example, have real reasons to fear that handing over streams of data to Google might allow it to better understand how people are acting on their services.

So don’t. Make content public, yes. But find a way to agree that the actions — the number of tweets, the number of likes, whatever — are declared off-limits for use by other search engines. If things like robots.txt and the nofollow attribute can work for search, the social networks can figure out their own mechanisms.

Moving Forward

Does everyone get what they really want with this?

Google already has a social graph that’s building in Google+. It really doesn’t need to be worried about getting social shares or actions from the other services — though if they want to offer this, that’s their option. But giving Google the additional information I’ve outlined will allow it to do a better job of exposing content from these other services in search.

Twitter doesn’t get some big payday for its feed, but it’s not getting that now. What it does gain is people who stop complaining they can’t find their own tweets. It gains the chance that with decent meta data, Google will rethink the Google+ification of its search results and return to the idea that search results can be social using anyone’s network. And Twitter’s content gains more exposure, important for a service that more and more talks about itself as being a content play.

Facebook gets even more exposure within Google than it has now. Opening up keeps pressure on Google, as with Twitter, that there can’t just be some Google+ification with the excuse that Google has no choice, because Facebook won’t do a deal. And Facebook potentially avoids the anti-trust critics that almost certainly will come for it in a few years, just as they’ve come for Google now, claiming that Facebook is staying to closed and using its market dominance to keep others out.

I know these proposals may sound naive. Some of what I describe might already exist. But we do need a way forward. Search and social have been colliding, but we don’t need a collision. We need a collusion, and not in the negative sense but a collusion where the users really are being served best by the services they depend on. That can happen, even supporting healthy competition, but without the social superpowers going to war.

(Stock image via Shutterstock. Used under license.)

Related Stories

Looking to understand more about some of the issues in the data war between Google, Facebook and Twitter? See especially the first two articles:

• Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World”
• FAQ: What’s The Debate About Google’s Search Plus Your World?
• “Don’t Be Evil” Tool — Backed By Facebook & Twitter — Shows Google’s “Search Plus Your World” Can Go Beyond Google+

The tool — a bookmarklet that works in your browser — changes three parts of Search Plus Your World that currently shows information only from Google Plus. These are:

• People & Pages results
• Google+ Sitelinks
• Google+ Suggestions In Autocomplete

The tool can be found on the Focus On The User web site. It was created, as the site says, by engineers at Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, who in turn consulted with other unnamed social networking companies. The “Don’t Be Evil” name of the tool comes from Google’s philosophy of wanting to focus on what’s best for users, rather than what’s best for Google.

The companies behind the tool feel Google’s hasn’t focused on what’s best for its users with Search Plus Your World. They have a good point. But the tool makes this point better than all the debates that have happened so far around Search Plus Your Word, because it shows what Google could have done to better serve searchers, if it had wanted to.

Below, how to install the tool and how it works, once you’ve done so, along with a revisiting of some of the issues it highlights.

Installing The Don’t Be Evil Bookmarklet

To get the tool, head to the site and look for the “Try a more relevant Google” button:

Clicking the button will make a new window appear, with a “don’t be evil” button that’s visible:

You click and hold on that button, then drag it to the bookmarks bar in your browser (if you don’t see your bookmarks bar, look in your browser’s options to make this visible):

Once it’s installed, you’ll see it on your on your bookmarks bar:

When you search on Google, you push that button to transform your results, as I’ll cover next. By the way, I’ve tested this with both Google Chrome and Firefox. It should also work with Safari. It doesn’t work with Internet Explorer.

Problem: “People & Pages” Powered By Google+

One of the biggest issues I’ve had with Search Plus (my shorthand name for Search Plus Your World) was the new “People and Pages on Google+” results that appear for some searches. These can show up even if you don’t have a Google+ account or are logged out of Google entirely.

These are the first search results that I’ve ever seen on Google that haven’t been inclusive of sources beyond Google, when those sources are available. To understand more about this, and how it’s such a major departure for Google, see my previous post, To Understand Google Favoritism, Think If Google+ Were YouTube.

Aside from favoring Google in a way that I’ve never seen before, I’ve felt that the results simply weren’t providing the best information to searchers at Google, especially given the prime real estate being given to them. My previous story, Real-Life Examples Of How Google’s “Search Plus” Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy, explains more about that.

The reason for the relevancy gap was simple. Google+ still lacks many important or notable people that might be on the other social networks. Indeed, until last week, Lady Gaga wasn’t on Google+ despite being one of the most followed people on Twitter and Facebook. Her absence meant she’d never have a chance at being one of the music recommendations for the People & Places results that Google was showing.

Including other social accounts in People & Pages results would, as I’ve written repeatedly, done what I expect of Google as a search engine, delivered a great search experience. From one of my past posts:

I’d love to see is Google retool the social suggestions that come up, so they aren’t simply Google+ “People & Pages” results injected into Google but more inclusive of other social sites, as well. Because that type of inclusive search product is what Google does well, and what we expect for the company to provide.

Now the engineers at Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have done what I expected Google to do, create a social suggestions search engine. Let’s see some examples.

Solution: “People & Pages” Powered By Google Search

Let’s start with a search for music. On the left, what you see from Google’s Search Plus. On the right, how things change after you click the Don’t Be Evil bookmarklet:

The first set of arrows at the top show how “People and Pages on Google+” is changed instead to “People and Pages from the Social Web.”

The second set of arrows shows how for Britney Spears, rather than her Google+ profile being shown (where she has 1.6 million followers), her Twitter account is displayed (where she has 12.6 million followers). Underneath her Twitter account, links to her MySpace, Facebook and Tumblr accounts are also shown.

The third set of arrows shows how for Snoop Dogg, rather than his Google+ profile being shown (with 1.4 million followers), his Twitter account (with 6.2 million followers) is shown. Underneath that, links to his MySpace, Facebook and Google+ accounts are displayed.

I’ll explain more about how each profile gets selected, but first, let’s do some more examples. Here’s a search for cars:

For this search, the Google+ page for Ferrari (6,500 followers) is changed to Ferrari’s Facebook page (5.6 million followers), with its YouTube page as an alternative link. Toyota’s Google+ page (180,000 followers) is also changed to the Toyota Facebook page (700,000 followers).

One of my favorite examples to show the failing of Google’s current system is a search for Facebook:

On the left, Google’s regular listings suggest Mark Zuckerberg’s Google+ profile as something people should follow. It really is Zuckerberg’s official page, with over 600,000 followers. However, Zuckerberg has never posted to it since creating that profile shortly after Google+ launched.

On the right, the Don’t Be Evil button transforms that listing into something useful, a pointer to Zuckerberg’s Facebook page (his Google+, Twitter and Quora pages are listed as alternatives.

Also notice the arrows. In this case, I was signed-in to Google+, which is why an “Add to circles” button appear next to the Google+ result. However, when the result was transformed to show a Facebook listing, I got an indication showing that I was already following Zuckerberg on Facebook (if I wasn’t, a Like button allowing me to follow him would have appeared).

One more example, this time to show that there’s more intelligence going on that just stripping out Google+ links and swapping them for any other network. Here’s a search for Google:

The first suggestion is for Google’s own page on Google+, which is changed to Google’s page on Twitter. Notice how there’s a “Follow” button next to the Twitter link, as well.

Under that is Larry Page. His listing isn’t changed. It remains pointing to his Google+ page, which makes sense. To the best of my knowledge, that’s the only place he’s active socially. While LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts are also shown for him, none of those seem to be real accounts for him.

What’s The Most Relevant Social Account To Show? Ask Google!

We could debate which is the most best social account to show for each of the examples above in various ways, such as:

• Should it be based on followers? If so, in many cases, accounts on the established social networks of Twitter and Facebook would easily trump Google+ accounts, though not always.
• Should it be based on activity? Britney hasn’t posted to Google+ since January 18. Her last tweets are more recent, as of January 21. Does that count for more?
• Should it be based on engagement? Even if Britney hasn’t been on Google+ recently, perhaps her engagement with fans is better there?

Rather than try to figure all this out — and potentially come under accusations they were selecting metrics to favor their own social networks — the developers of the Don’t Be Evil bookmarklet decided to let Google itself figure out which social account was most relevant.

For example, let’s go back to how the listing for Snoop Dogg was changed:

What happens is that the bookmarklet looks at which accounts are listed initially by Google in the People & Pages section. It then does a search for the people or companies listed to find which social profiles Google itself believes are most relevant, in the first 100 results.

In the case of Snoop Dogg, the bookmarklet sees that he’s listed as a People & Pages suggestion for a search on “music.” It then conducts a search for “snoop dogg” on Google, to see which social account Google lists first for him.

As you can see above, Twitter is the first social account shown, so the bookmarklet rewrites Snoop Dogg’s suggestion to link to his Twitter account. His MySpace account is found next, so it’s listed as the first alternative. Facebook is found after that, so it’s the second alternative. Google+ is found after that, so it becomes the third alternative.

According to the tool’s FAQ page, it checks for links from any of these social networks:

• CrunchBase (weird, I wouldn’t consider this a social network)
• Github
• Google+
• Facebook
• Flickr
• Foursquare
• FriendFeed
• LinkedIn
• MySpace
• Quora
• Stack Overflow
• Tumblr
• Twitter

All the information the tool finds comes solely from Google itself, even the profile pictures, which are generated using Google’s own rich snippets testing tool, as the FAQ page explains.

Because only Google’s own information is being used, the tool can’t patch up a key weakness, which is that all the suggestions are initially based on people who are in Google Plus.

For example, you will never get Katy Perry as a music suggestion, despite her being one of the most followed musicians on Facebook or Twitter. That’s because she’s not on Google+, so she has no chance of appearing as a suggestion to music-related queries. If she doesn’t get suggested, then the tool can’t add her.

Problem: Autocomplete Profiles Only For Google+

Another feature of Search Plus that favors Google+ is within Google’s search box. As you type, the autocomplete feature of Google Instant will suggest things you should search for. For notable or prominent people, these suggestions may also include a link to their Google+ profile. For example, consider this search for Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg:

Just typing in the word “sheryl”  – when I was completely logged out of Google — was enough for it to suggest that I select her Google+ page, where Sandberg last posted in September. That’s pretty preferential treatment. Why should that be suggested over Sandberg’s personal web site or another social profile?

Solution: Expand The Choices

The Don’t Be Evil button developers call the autocomplete suggestions “typeahead” results. When you use their button, the typeahead suggestion is changed. For Sandberg, her Facebook profile is shown:

The same logic I explained above is used to do this. Whatever Google lists as the first social network for a search on Sandberg’s name, that profile is used to go into the autocomplete box (though for me, it should be her CrunchBase profile there, not her Facebook profile).

I’ve covered this in my earlier articles, but I’ll stress it again. Pointing to Google+ profiles — and no other profiles — was a significant change to favor Google+ than how Google operated in the past. Consider this:

That’s where I’m starting a search for “facebook.” I’ve only entered the “face” part and, already, Google suggests that I go directly to the Facebook home page from within the search box itself.

Google started offering these types of suggestions back in 2008 and 2009. You can still see it working today, if you disable Google Instant predictions within your search settings. Typing in Amazon, or Best Buy or New York Times brings up other examples of this.

Most people have Google Instant on, since it’s the default, so they never see these type of “old” web link suggestions. Instead, they get the new Google+ profile ones. Google didn’t have to only push these, but it chose to.

Problem: Sitelinks Only For Google+

Ever done a search and noticed a bunch of listings “indented” under the main listing? Those are called sitelinks. For listings associated with Google+ accounts, they pick up special sitelinks, their last two posts on Google Plus. Here an example for TV Guide, what someone who is logged out of Google would see:

The two arrows point to the special Google+ sitelinks that are appearing. This type of thing existed before Search Plus Your World rolled out, though I can’t recall any formal announcement of it. Certainly when Direct Connect for Google+ came out, there was nothing that highlighted these sitelinks as part of that.

In fact, the addition of them feels very odd, given how just over a year ago, Google was showing sitelinks of a different sort for other social networks. For example, here’s how a search for Twitter was suggesting people our news editor Barry Schwartz should follow:

Solution: New Social Sitelinks

The Don’t Be Evil button replaces the Google+ sitelinks similarly to how other changes are done. Here’s TV Guide again:

Rather than two Google+ sitelinks being shown, only a single one appears. In this case, it’s a link to TV Guide’s Twitter profile, since that’s the first profile that the tool finds when doing a Google search for “tv guide.” A link to TV Guide’s Facebook profile follows as an alternative.

Which Way Forward?

As I’ve explained in many articles over the past two weeks, I’ve been pretty disturbed by Google’s promotion of Google+ within its search pages.

The “People & Pages” results, if they’re intended as a promotion for Google+, still come across as if they are regular search results — results that I think Google users assume come from across the web. They do not. The come only from Google+ itself.

You could argue with better labeling, that type of promotion might work better. But that still leaves questions about why Google+ profiles are being pushed within Google’s search suggestions, rather than links to other pages from across the web. The links shown there aren’t necessarily the most relevant suggestions to be shown.

Google, in particular its executive chairman Eric Schmidt, has argued that it doesn’t have all the data it needs to include other social services in the way it does for Google Plus. The failure to reach a deal with Facebook; the failure to renew a deal with Twitter, these have prevented the social signals it needs from being used, Google has said.

The Don’t Be Evil tool demonstrates this isn’t the case, that there are social signals that Google already can find which could be used, if it wants.

Of course, if Google had done so what the Don’t Be Evil tool is doing now — incorporated links to Facebook and Twitter after they’ve rejected deals — potentially Google could have been accused of scraping content from them without permission. Indeed, that was one of the things Facebook suggested last year in what was widely seen as a smear campaign.

I put that to Facebook when I talked with the company last week about the tool. I was told Facebook saw a difference between taking public signals to build a competing social service — as it felt Google was doing — and using those signals as part of a search service that points outward.

I was also assured that if Google wanted to do the types of things that the Don’t Be Evil tool is now doing, Facebook wouldn’t complain.

We’ll see. I’ll be following up with Google. In the meantime, you can read more at the Focus On The User web site, and there’s also an overview video available:

Click here to view the embedded video.

John Battelle also has a nice write-up with his perspective here, and Techmeme has a round-up of coverage from others.

Google’s Unusual Balancing Act

It can seem confusing — even hypocritical — for services like Facebook and Twitter to not release their public data more fully to anyone (including Google) without demanding deals, then complain they don’t feel represented enough in search results.

It can also seem odd that both of those companies might favor themselves in their own social networks, not include Google+, yet demand that Google somehow be “fair” to them.

The challenge Google faces, however, is that it operates both a social network and a search engine. The Google+ social network does compete with Facebook and Twitter, and anyone would expect that it should favor itself.

The Google search engine, however, was founded on the idea that it should be fair to all. That is, after all, what a good search engine should do — provide the best results, not the results best for its parent company. The continued Google+ification of Google’s search results is bringing that fairness into question.

Potentially, that’s an anti-trust issue (and Facebook, as the dominant social service, might find itself similarly under pressure to open up to competitors). But anti-trust issues aside, it’s simply a trust issue. Will users trust that Google’s results are doing the right thing by them?

I strongly encourage anyone feeling lost in all this debate and some of the tricky issues it presents to see my post from last week, FAQ: What’s The Debate About Google’s Search Plus Your World?

Finally, you can expect we’ll be taking a close look at the huge changes that Google+ is unleashing in the search marketing space at our upcoming SMX West conference in San Jose Feb. 28-March 1, in particular during these sessions:

• Getting Personal, Part 1: How Google & Bing Personalize With Social Connections
• Getting Personal, Part 2: How Google & Bing Personalize With Search History & Geography
• SEO For Google+ & Google Search
• Ask The Search Engines – Open Q&A Forum

Be sure to see the full agenda and register soon to save the most on a ticket.

Postscript: See A Proposal For Social Network Détente for some further reflections on moving ahead from today’s events.

Related Articles

• Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World”
• Search Engines Should Be Like Santa From “Miracle On 34th Street”
• To Understand Google Favoritism, Think “If Google+ Were YouTube”
• Real-Life Examples Of How Google’s “Search Plus” Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy
• Pimping Google+ In Search Works: Lady Gaga Finally Joins Google+
• Larry Page Ousts Mark Zuckerberg As Most Popular On Google+
• How Google Instant’s Autocomplete Suggestions Work
• How Facebook Enables The Google Social “Scraping” It’s Upset About
• Schmidt: Google+ Not Favored, Happy To Talk Twitter & Facebook Integration
• Google Now Forcing All New Users To Create Google+ Enabled Accounts
• “Ask On Google+” Links Appearing In Google’s Search Results
• Google To Close Social Graph API, Not OpenSocial
• FAQ: What’s The Debate About Google’s Search Plus Your World?

There’s a great deal of data already in the market about SMB adoption of social media. What they show is that between 45 percent and 70 percent of SMBs say they already have a presence on social media sites (mostly Facebook).

Borrell reports that between 60 and 64 percent of SMBs have a formal presence on social media sites. An earlier 2011 study by Palore found that 58.2 percent of SMBs are on either Facebook or Twitter. And a late-November survey from MerchantCircle found that about 70 percent of SMBs said they promoted themselves using Facebook.

Borrell also found that social media marketing was just behind paid-search for SMBs in 2011. Given the ambivalence that many SMBs feel about paid search (though not organic) one could expect that social media advertising and other promotional spending would surpass paid search in 2012.

Borrell’s report estimates that roughly $6.2 billion was spent in 2011 on social media advertising (all in) and that Facebook captured or saw about 65 percent of that. The SMB-specific component of social media spending is smaller, roughly $1.14 billion, according to the report.

Another interesting piece of data in the report is the way that SMBs measure social media success or ROI. Most use “new customers” as the key metric (it’s not clear how many actively or successfully track that however). Additional fans/followers comes in at number two.

Borrell says, “On average each [SMB] has a network of more than 4,000 friends and followers. But this statistic is skewed by a few respondents who claim tens of thousands or more. Perhaps a better gauge is the median reported: about 250 followers.”

Yet even 250 fans/followers is probably more than a substantial percentage of SMBs have on their pages. The mid-2011 Palore study argued that about 38 percent of SMBs on Facebook had very few fans/Likes and very little engagement. The percentage of SMBs showing limited follower activity was even larger on Twitter (44.5 percent).

The Borrell report illustrates the increasing demand for social media marketing among SMBs. However it doesn’t explore the gap between that demand and the often ineffectual or inept social media efforts of those same businesses.

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