Posted on September 9, 2009 by 
Searching is the web’s most common activity. Many of our Internet sessions start with a search of one form or another.
The brand fueling this search for much of the nineties was Yahoo. Then came the millenium and the baton was taken up by Google. Over the last 6 months it has been Microsoft’s Bing that has grabbed all the search headlines.
But now there’s a new kid on the block. Well I say new, it’s actually quite an old kid. A teenager in Internet years: the company experiencing the fastest growth in search traffic is apparently Facebook. According to the ComScore monthly search report, Facebook searches exploded by a massive 35% last month.
Yes, the website whose main purpose is Social Networking has introduced new search features which has catapulted it into the search big league. Members can search for stuff like photos, videos, links and even member updates. Whilst they used to have to hunt for these within other users’ profiles, the new Search Engine Results page (SERP) delivers them in categories, depending on what the member has searched for.
Its a little bit different to searching on Google – members are not going to be looking for products and services in this way. It is those product and service searches that advertisers really like, and the reason why Google has so much advertising revenue. But this is just the first step in Facebooks’ journey to become not just a social networking site, but a real player when it comes to search.
Facebook clear has real search ambition. The company has also enhanced its ability to provide real-time search, a battle ground that has only this year become more intense. And of course last month they bought FriendFeed, which will add another layer to the searchable, real time nature of the service.
Google isn’t taking this lying down. They are making the journey in the other direction, from search engine to social media enterprise. They have recently added lots of social features to their web properties in order to make them stickier. And their own moves towards real-time search shows they are defending their interests there too. But if Facebook search continues to grow at this rate, Google may have to move to protect its pure search homelands.
There were casualties in the search market too. Those experiencing declining search volumes were AskJeeves (down 4%), and Yahoo and AOL (who dropped 5% each).
Do you think Facebook has a chance to rival Google as a search engine? How will Facebook monetise their new services? Leave us a comment below.
Facebook is already monetizing at a scary rate– well over a million dollars a day in self-serve revenue alone. We were at Facebook headquarters twice in the last month to see what they have in store– frightening.
Their primary goal is user growth and user experience and revenue is secondary concern. Even still, growth is causing revenue growth, given the massive explosion of traffic.
What is Euston Digital doing to get “traditional” PPC clients to allocate a share to Facebook self-serve, of which there are no public tools or APIs yet?
Hi Dennis,
Thanks for your comment. Yes interesting times indeed for Facebook. We too we’re in the London Offices last month. Facebook Self serve is interesting but still a bit clunky in terms of targeting in our view. We’ve tested a number of campaigns and approaches on the platform for various clients. If you set up highly granular campaigns with a mixture of variables then you can achieve some ‘fair’ returns.
We don’t have a policy for pushing clients towards one advertising medium or another, but push the combination of channels that get the best results. And at the risk of sounding a bit too much like Google, that means: test, test and test again.
One factor here is measurement. You can’t measure all channels in the same way – whilst ‘first click’, ‘last click’, ‘user journey’, and ‘click share’ work when applied to PPC, elsewhere you have to think a bit differently.
What are your thoughts on this? I’d be interested to hear whether US and UK facebook users interact differently. In fact I’ll talk to my rep and find out…. I’ll keep you posted.
Nick
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That’s an great post, I really think that social platformsnetworking type of sites are going to be taking a huge progression in 2010. I really think that we are only in the introduction stages of social networking and we can see that with applications like Foursqure, it’s only a matter of time until all things are communicating together at an even greater level. I’m can’t wait and am excited for this year, it’s gonna be a big year in social networking. Hope you agree!
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When google’s answer comes out it will be interesting as they actually have a chance of beating facebook. Time will tell.