Comments on: Did You Know Barack Obama is the #2 Google Result for Searches of Facebook?

By: Ozan Onay

Ozan Onay — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:11:06 +0000

No, Facebook doesn't have that degree of control over the SERP order of their pages.

I suspect that you did your original search at a time when many people were writing about Obama's social media campaign – his profile would have been given a boost as the backlinking sites would have been treated by google as new information.

By: Ben Parr

Ben Parr — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:11:19 +0000

I find that really interesting. I tried it multiple times to be sure, but now Obama doesn't even appear in the top 50. Google doesn't fluctuate that much, does it? It had to be on the Facebook end.

By: Ozan Onay

Ozan Onay — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:02:14 +0000

Firstly, I can't reproduce your result. I get the 'about' and 'login' pages, and only see Obama's profile as 4th in 'more results from facebook.com'.

Having said that, the high ranking is still feasible due to the large number of quality external links to Obama's profile (presumably more than any other Facebook user). You can see these in google with link:facebook.com/barackobama.

Facebook wouldn't intentionally optimize one profile over another. They have however done a little bit of work to optimize public profiles.

By: Ozan Onay

Ozan Onay — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:11:00 +0000

No, Facebook doesn’t have that degree of control over the SERP order of their pages.

I suspect that you did your original search at a time when many people were writing about Obama’s social media campaign – his profile would have been given a boost as the backlinking sites would have been treated by google as new information.

By: Ben Parr

Ben Parr — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:11:00 +0000

I find that really interesting. I tried it multiple times to be sure, but now Obama doesn’t even appear in the top 50. Google doesn’t fluctuate that much, does it? It had to be on the Facebook end.

By: Ozan Onay

Ozan Onay — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:02:00 +0000

Firstly, I can’t reproduce your result. I get the ‘about’ and ‘login’ pages, and only see Obama’s profile as 4th in ‘more results from facebook.com’.

Having said that, the high ranking is still feasible due to the large number of quality external links to Obama’s profile (presumably more than any other Facebook user). You can see these in google with link:facebook.com/barackobama.

Facebook wouldn’t intentionally optimize one profile over another. They have however done a little bit of work to optimize public profiles.

By: Ozan Onay

Ozan Onay — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:11:06 +0000

No, Facebook doesn't have that degree of control over the SERP order of their pages.

By: Ben Parr

Ben Parr — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:11:19 +0000

I find that really interesting. I tried it multiple times to be sure, but now Obama doesn't even appear in the top 50. Google doesn't fluctuate that much, does it? It had to be on the Facebook end.

By: Ozan Onay

Ozan Onay — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:02:14 +0000