Are The “Public Search Listings” New, As Facebook Claims?
No. To explain more, last week on Sept. 5, Facebook blogged about the new public search listings: Starting today, we are making limited public search listings available to people who are not logged in to Facebook. That makes the listings seem like something brand new. But they aren’t. My aforementioned Facebook Opens Profiles To Tap Into Google Traffic article documented how Tom Critchlow found he had a public search listing back in July — and one that was showing up in Google. Rae “Sugarrae” Hoffman is an experienced Facebook user who also found that her profile was available and in search engines ages ago. Why care if the listings aren’t new but just being spun that way? Because many people were not aware that these profiles were already being offered and, importantly, might not have wanted them to be found by search engines. That leads to the next question. 2) Was The Default Privacy Setting Changed To Expose These Listings? Maybe. I can’t say definitely, because only Facebook knows
