Google adds Facebook status updates to real-time search

Google already indexes Twitter and MySpace updates in its real time search results and on its new Buzz social media component of Gmail.

This is the first time Google has integrated any information from Facebook into its search results. However, the information it is allowed to integrate is more limited than the deal the social network has in place with Microsoft’s Bing.

Google can only index status updates from Facebook Pages – which are “for organisations, businesses, celebrities, and bands to broadcast great information to fans in an official, public manner”, according to the network’s own definition, and act more as marketing tools.

Bing, on the other hand, is able to index individuals’ status updates which are set to public. The relationship between Facebook and Microsoft is closer because the technology giant is an investor in the social networking site and also powers the search on the site.

However, Facebook Pages are becoming a bigger feature on the site – with more than three million active users presently on the site and a total of 5.3 billion fans.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, publicly said last year that no money changed hands with either Bing or Google when agreeing the respective indexing deals.

This news will open up a new opportunity to Facebook Fan Page owners who till now relied only on the Facebook traffic. Now with page updates being indexed real time on Google, Webmasters will have serious considerations to have a Fan Page in Facebook.

Yesterday the news emerged that Yahoo! had also signed a deal with Twitter, which not only takes in search, but also a deeper integration of the microblogging service’s tools. 

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