By Luanne Teoh on 11-04-2011

Typically, comments posted on Facebook have never shown in search results. All this is changing as Google has revealed that it now indexes comments on Facebook. Google is also able to index commenting engines like Diqus and Intense Debate.

According to Launch, a Google spokesperson said, “What you’re seeing is a result of Google increasingly being able to crawl JavaScript and AJAX content. We have steadily been increasing our ability to index richer content such as JavaScript/AJAX. If users can see something in their browser, our goal is to be able to index that content irrespective of its language or format.”

As confirmed by Matt Cutts.

Here is an example of a restaurant page I like on Facebook. The comments and name now show on Google’s search results.

This was also confirmed by Amit Agarwal of Digital Inspiration who said “Googlebots, or the spiders that crawl web pages,  are now reading Facebook comments on websites just like any other text content and the more interesting part is that you can also search the text of these comments using regular Google search.”

To start with increasing your brand’s visibility, you may want to consider using more keywords on your Facebook posts when interacting with your fans. This will help the relevance realm as users search Google for information related to your product/service through keywords.

This will also level the playing field for small businesses competing for search engine rankings with the big players. By being more interactive and engaging with your fans on Facebook, this is an area you can help affect your search results. The more comments and keywords related to your product/service, the more Google will index and show in its Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

With this development, Google is now taking social search to a whole new level since its release in 2010.

However, what remains to be seen is Google passing on link juice to the brand/website of the links posted on your Facebook page by the people who comment.

About Luanne Teoh

Luanne is a senior correspondent for BizTechDay focused on Small Business Tech, Mobile and China based in San Francisco. Apart from a keen interest in technology, Luanne is also and avid explorer of the globe, cultures and people.

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