1. Mediaite
  2. Gossip Cop
  3. Geekosystem
  4. Styleite
  5. SportsGrid
  6. The Mary Sue
  7. The Jane Dough
  8. The Braiser
warning: this is not a surprise

Facebook Comments Now Searchable On Google, Don’t Panic

by Eric Limer | 4:14 pm, November 2nd, 2011

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it seems that Facebook comments are finally showing up in Google search results. Google’s bots have recently gained the ability to index pages that have AJAX and JavaScript content — Facebook comments, for instance. Until now, Google wasn’t able to index and rank most 3rd party commenting systems (like our own Disqus), but now that they’re able to, you can bet they’re going to.

Concerned about privacy implications? Well, you probably shouldn’t be. All the privacy options that are available with Facebook and such still apply, so if your account is locked down properly, you won’t see any of your particularly embarrassing drunken rants showing up in Google searches until one of your so-called “friends” decides to submit one to all the popular comedy websites as revenge for a similar, but unrelated tirade directed at him that he thought was completely uncalled for, but that he totally had coming. Not that that’s ever happened to me. Definitely not. (But really though, it hasn’t.)

The comments that’ll be showing up in Google searches are largely ones in public forums, so there’s really no breach of privacy here unless you’re a total troll and Google is blowing up your spot. There is, however, a minor breach of privacy somewhere else. If your privacy settings are all locked down tight, but you make a comment to Steve, who hasn’t updated his privacy settings since senior year of high school, your comment may become searchable, so watch your step.

All in all, this is something you totally should have seen coming, so hopefully you’re ready. You’ve had a couple of years to come to terms with the fact that things on the Internet are rarely private. I hope you’ve adjusted.

(via PCWorld)

Relevant to your rampant paranoia

  • http://sdhardie.tumblr.com Sheila

    This isn’t new, actually. And there is actually reason to be concerned: Let say you and I are FB friends; my photo settings are set to Friends of Friends or public; you comment on one of my photos; your comments are now indexed by Google.  I’ve been asking Google for going on two years now to let users control how our comments on other peoples’ statuses/photos are handled, to no avail. And since we have no way of seeing what settings our friends have set their walls to, we either stop posting altogether, or take our chances.

    Edit: Sorry, I only saw the short version of this in my email. Now that I see the whole article, I realize you covered this point already. It’s not a new thing though, it’s been this way for at least a year, which I know because I’ve found my own comments showing up on Google for at least that long.

  • Rachel Gitlevich

    Why would anyone want to add facebook comments to google’s plethora of useless search engine results? Its bad enough to be getting unreliable blog posts as the only content that comes up on an internet search, but facebook comments? How is that even remotely useful!?


Abrams Media Network click here for advertising opportunities

© 2012 Geekosystem, LLC | About Us | Advertise | Newsletter | Jobs | Privacy | User Agreement | Disclaimer | Power Grid FAQ | Contact | Archives | RSS RSS
Dan Abrams, Founder | Power Grid by Sound Strategies | Hosting by Datagram