Facebook Comments Now Being Indexed By Google

By Greg Finn

Published: November 1, 2011 at 10:11 am

Add-on commenting systems like Facebook Comments enhance the user experience, but can make it harder for search engines to index content. Most third party commenting systems leverage javascript to display information and add bells and whistles. However, Labnol.org reported that now Facebook Comments are being crawled (and ranking) in Google’s SERPs effectively breaking the mold for third party commenting systems and rankings:

Techcrunch Commens

Facebook Comments can be displayed in a few different formats, XFBML (Xtended FaceBook Markup Language) and HTML5. While the report references that Google is crawling comments embedded in an iframe, that specific functionality is not supported for Facebook comments.

We performed some tests and can confirm that many of the comments are in fact showing up for articles. Here’s a search for a comment on the Raven blog that uses an XFBML implementation of Facebook Comments: Raven Example

So look for Facebook Comments showing up in Google results. If you would like to give your comments the best chance to rank, go with the XFBML implementation as that type is what has been shown to rank.

Postscript by Barry Schwartz: Matt Cutts of Google confirmed this behavior and added Google Can Now Execute AJAX & JavaScript For Indexing.

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Contributing authors are chosen for their expertise and work under the oversight of the editorial staff. Search Engine Land is owned by Semrush. The contributor was not asked to mention Semrush; the opinions expressed are their own.

About the author

Greg Finn

Greg Finn is the Director of Marketing for Cypress North, a company that provides digital marketing and web development. He is a co-host of Marketing O'Clock and has been in the digital marketing industry for nearly 20 years. You can also find Greg on Twitter (@gregfinn) or LinkedIn.