Search Engine Land
  • SEO
    • > All SEO
    • > What Is SEO?
    • > SEO Periodic Table
    • > Google: SEO
    • > Bing SEO
    • > Google Algorithm Updates
  • PPC
    • > All PPC
    • > What is PPC?
    • > Google Ads
    • > Microsoft Ads
    • > The Periodic Tables of PPC
  • Focuses
    • > Local
    • > Commerce
    • > Shopify SEO Guide
    • > Content
    • > Email Marketing Periodic Table
    • > Social Media Marketing
    • > Analytics
    • > Search Engine Land Awards
    • > All Focuses
  • SMX
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • About
    • > About Search Engine Land
    • > Newsletter
    • > Third Door Media
    • > Advertise

Processing...Please wait.

Search Engine Land » Channel » SEO » Zuckerberg On Search: “At Some Point, We’ll Do It” & Be “Uniquely Positioned”

Zuckerberg On Search: “At Some Point, We’ll Do It” & Be “Uniquely Positioned”

Waiting for a Facebook search engine? Eventually, it’ll arrive, says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But it might not be what you expect. Speaking in an interview today at TechCrunch Disrupt with Mike Arrington, Zuckerberg said that Facebook is doing a billion searches per day, “and we’re not even trying.” Most searches are, as we’ve heard […]

Danny Sullivan on September 11, 2012 at 5:50 pm

Waiting for a Facebook search engine? Eventually, it’ll arrive, says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But it might not be what you expect. Speaking in an interview today at TechCrunch Disrupt with Mike Arrington, Zuckerberg said that Facebook is doing a billion searches per day, “and we’re not even trying.”

Most searches are, as we’ve heard in the past, really people searching for other people. But there are also searches for brands. “There’s a big opportunity there,” Zuckerberg said, of going beyond people search.

But the opportunity might not be to build a search engines as they’ve traditionally been. Zuckerberg talked of how search engines take in keywords, run “some magic” and produce lists as changing.

“Search engines are evolving” to “giving you a set of answers,” Zuckerberg said. In this new model, “Facebook is pretty uniquely positioned to answer a lot of questions people have.”

He gave examples of wanting to know about a sushi restaurant and being able to tell what’s the right answer based on your connections.

“These are queries you could potentially do on Facebook if we built it out,” he said. “At some point we’ll do it,” he went on. “We have a team working on search.”

But then Zuckerberg seemed to pull back, describing search as an “ongoing effort” more focused around still helping people find other people on Facebook and saying there was “nothing specific to announce.”

Facebook has indeed long had a search team, and it’s a team that has done anything but seemed to dive into competing with Google head-on, even when Google, as Arrington joked opening up the question about search, may have “pissed” Facebook off by launching Google+ and fighting directly on the social front.

I’ve always come away feeling that Facebook certainly had plenty to do with getting the tough job of “discovery” of content through social right without going into the search space, which is a massive project to itself.

Instead, Facebook has lent its weight to Bing, making it the close partner to tap into its social data while Google has been locked out.

Being locked out certainly hasn’t seemed to hurt Google’s search relevancy nor somehow boosted Bing past Google on the back of Facebook’s data. Links: The Broken “Ballot Box” Used By Google & Bing is an article from me last month that explains more about this.

I highly recommend reading that, along with the others below, to better understand some of the pros and cons about social helping search:

  • Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World”
  • Bing Relaunches, Features New Social Sidebar
  • How Serious Is Facebook About Search?

Note: I heard Zuckerberg has saying Facebook does on the order of a quarter billion searches per day, but several other outlets are saying he said one billion per day. I’ve updated my article to that figure until I can double-check with the eventual video.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


New on Search Engine Land

    Webinar: Dominate your competition with Google auction insights and search intelligence

    Vimeo adds structured data to all public videos to improve Google Search visibility

    How to manage and edit your Google Business Profile from Google search

    Google Search Console page experience report now tracks more desktop search features

    What’s your SEO learning style?

About The Author

Danny Sullivan
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Related Topics

BingFacebookGoogleSEO

Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS

Learn actionable search marketing tactics that can help you drive more traffic, leads, and revenue.

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes (virtual)

June 14-15, 2022: SMX Advanced (virtual)

November 15-16, 2022: SMX Next (virtual)

Learn More About Our SMX Events

Discover time-saving technologies and actionable tactics that can help you overcome crucial marketing challenges.

Start Discovering Now: Spring (virtual)

September 28-29, 2022: Fall (virtual)

Learn More About Our MarTech Events

Webinars

Data-Driven Answers to Achieve Omnichannel Success

Is Your Marketing Stack Ready for Omnichannel CX?

Outrank in Organic Search with These 5 Core Tactics

See More Webinars

Intelligence Reports

Enterprise SEO Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Identity Resolution Platforms

Email Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Sales Enablement Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Digital Experience Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Call Analytics Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports

White Papers

Realising the power of virtual events for demand generation

The Progressive Marketer’s Ultimate Events Strategy 2022 Worksheet

CMO Guide: How to Plan Smart and Pivot Fast

The Retail Renaissance Report, USA Edition: 4 Keys to Predicting Online & In-Store Demand Across Global Markets

Thinking Bigger About Marketing Budgets

See More Whitepapers

Receive daily search news and analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • SEO
  • PPC

Our Events

  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX
  • MarTech

About

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS
  • Youtube

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.