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Google Seems to Have Misplaced My Facebook Fan Page—Have You Seen It Anywhere?
Until recently a search on my name in either Google or Yahoo produced the same results: my website and blog, my profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter; and my fledgling Facebook fan page for my social media consulting business. As a social media consultant, I have used my name as a search term to demonstrate that social networking sites come up early as search results. I have also done this to show how Facebook pages show up at the top of search results.
Earlier this week, in a discussion with a local businessman about the power and benefits of social networking, I did a search in Google for my name. My site and blog came up as did my profiles in LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Posterous. No sign of my Facebook fan page. My fan page is relatively new and I use it to share information about using social media for business. I share links to the posts others have written, I ask questions often and occasionally get responses from my 324 fans. I share the rare posts from my own blog. I started my fan page deliberately so that I would have personal experience with the positives and negatives of maintaining a Facebook page for my social media consulting business.
So I searched on a former client’s name. No Facebook fan page. Yet he has a carefully tended page with thousands of fans and his page used to come early in results from a search on his name. I then searched for Coca Cola; a well known brand with an extremely popular page. No fan page. I started to ask questions, first surreptitiously and then openly. I have tweeted, emailed and posted and no one seems to have an answer. Yet. Some of my friends offer the opinion that Google has, once again, changed its algorithms and that explains it. Or have posited that the inclusion of real-time search has changed how pages come up in search now. An SEO expert explained that I needed to write my posts differently using my page name within the post so that Google would read it and include it.
That may be the answer. We’ll see. Feels a bit awkward to include that language but it’s worth trying. However, that doesn’t explain why it used to come up and now doesn’t. My fan page, Allen Mireles Social Media Consulting or http://facebook.com/amsocialmediaconsulting, shows up in a search from within Facebook. As does my former client’s and Coca Cola’s. From outside of Facebook, however, not so much. My fan page shows up on page two of a Yahoo! search on my name (it didn’t yesterday) so that’s something. But what changed? And how much does it matter?
Oh wait! A Bing search on my name yields three references to my Facebook fan page on page one of the results. Has my fan page become a victim of dueling search engines?
What do you think? Do you have any suggestions? What am I missing here?
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Hi Allen.
I searched “Allen Mireles” in Google.ca (noon, Dec 13) and your Facebook Profile was the 6th result. Your Facebook Page is nowhere to be found.
I know this will seem off-topic and paranoid, but I think Google's search dominance is dangerous and, at some point should be challenged under “anti-trust” legislation. Their dominance threatens net neutrality and, frankly, if they are willing to censor search results for the People's Republic of China, what makes us think they won't do the same for other interests.
That said, this could just as easily have something to do with changes made by Facebook as it could changes made by Google.
According to Google your Facebook page is getting indexed (see referenced links etc http://bit.ly/8cUMvF ) but as you say, you might want to start building some more links pointing to it to get it a little more Google love.
I expect taht recent changes at Facebook may have changed somethings and it will all even back out once it settles down. At least until they make changes again…
Hi Allen
I just tweeted your post and directed it to the smartest technical SM person I know, Jye Smith. I'll let you know his answer!
Jon,
Thanks for taking the time to search. The interesting thing is that it is not just me. I have searched on major brands like Coke and come up with the same results (or lack thereof). And yet, have found my page (and others) on the first page of search results on Bing. So, I am really curious about the “why' and have yet to find an answer.
And then, if it turns out that there are many brands whose pages do not come up early in Google (and Yahoo! searches) what does this mean? Does it impact our recommending Facebook pages as a tactics for brands? Is it sufficient to have a presence and be found from within Facebook? Doe snot being easily found on Facebook from outside of Facebook cause a problem?
These are some of the questions I have been pondering.
Anybody have ideas to share?
Hi Janet,
Thanks for taking a moment to check into this. I appreciate your time and your insights. This may well prove out to be a Facebook issue–but I still find myself wondering why and wishing for better explanations.
Thank you Iggy. I so appreciate the gesture. You are a wonderfully supportive friend.
This is a pickle, isn't it? And again…not asking so much for myself as for all of the brands investing time and energy maintaining a Facebnook presence. Just want to really understand when I make recommendation to a client.
Cheers!
Allen, I'm joining the “party” here, but I'm not certain I have the right answers for you. I think I'm missing something. I Googled the “name” of my Facebook Fan Page — PERFORMANCE SOCIAL MEDIA and several links came up.
When I put in Allen Mireles Social Media Consulting, I got your Facebook Page as the SIXTH result: http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=129169735...
Hi Shari,
My point is that, in the past, I could do a Google search on just my name “Allen Mireles” as a demonstration to show that a fan page came up early in Google search results. Because it used to. My Facebook profile and fan page were among the top results for a search on my name. No longer. My profile still comes up on page one but my page does not.
The point of this was to show a brand that their fan page would come up early in Google searches on the brand name alone. Not on a search for brand + Facebook, or for other search terms, or for the name of the Facebook page. Just the brand name. Somehow, something has changed and this is no longer true for every brand. Or name.
Yet, it is still true for some. And, it still comes up on page one of a search on Bing. So why?
It does not appear to correlate to the number of fans or length of time the page has been in existence and may well be an SEO function that I am unaware of. If so, would love to know what it is.
And then, beyond that, does it still make sense for a brand to build and maintain a Facebook presence if their page is only easily found from within Facebook. (Probably so, but I am interested in other perspectives on this.)
Thanks for taking the time to read my post and comment. Hope you are enjoying your trip!
Allen, WEIRD! I did a search in Google and just got your Facebook page…no Fan Page. Now you have me curious…about our Fan Page. Let's tap into some SEO pros on Twitter and see what they've found to be the situation with Google.
Beth Harte
Community Manager, MarketingProfs
@bethharte
Thanks Beth. It will be interesting to see what we learn from this. I just tweeted that i have either asked a valid question or branded myself an idiot…lol. I guess time will tell, no?
I think it would be an interesting exercise to poll your Facebook Fans, to ask them how they discovered your Facebook Page. My guess is that very few did so by searching your name. More likely, they followed a link from your website, or a twitter link or page suggestion from you, or a trusted friend. So, while I understand and appreciate your concerns… I'm hoping you don't lose too much sleep over it. People searching your name will certainly find you, and – if they have an interest in becoming a fan on Facebook – won't have any trouble figuring out how.
Hey Jon,
That's a good suggestion. I'm really not losing sleep over this but remain fascinated. possible answers are trickling in right now as a result of my tweeting the question to so many different people.
One theory is that Facebook pages have had a lot of spam and so Google is treating them differently now. Another, that this is not new and is, pretty common and happens when Google changes its algorithms. I'm less concerned about my page, which is young and growing, than about pages my clients might be maintaining or thinking about building.
Thanks for taking the time to stop back and post your ideas.
HMMM, this question “may” be beyond me, but don't the search results depend a whole lot on traffic and longevity and outside links?
So when companies just start their fan pages, they can't realistically expect the site to show up early in the search — I'd thought.
Allen,
I'm no expert on SEO and the ways of Google are mysterious to me.
My first thought was to build links pointing to your fan page, but then I realized that if they have just removed Fan Pages across the board, I doubt if a link building strategy will fix it.
I forwarded the link to this post to a friend who is an SEO Grand Poobah, and await his sage wisdom.
In the meantime I also did searches for Ashton Kutcher, Oprah Winfrey and Ellen D and not a fan page popped up even among these heavy weights of social media.
Sorry I couldn't offer more insight (or better yet, a solution).
Charles Brown
Hi Allen,
So I think your SEO friend is partially right. If you Google just your name your fan page DOES come up but not until Page 2 in the results and it shows up as:
Links on “Allen Mireles Social Media Consulting” | Facebook
What's interesting is if you follow that link it goes to the Facebook equivalent of a Wall RSS of your Fan Page.
Now, as other people have commented, if you add the terms “social media” or “social media consulting” to your name the FB Fan Page shows up as 3rd or 4th in the rankings on the first page. It comes up in the same manner as mentioned earlier.
If you look at your Fan Page, on the left column your outbound Links to Twitter, etc are not active as they are on your personal page. Nor is the Info tab well filled out.
My thought is that Google is ranking the relevancy of your Fan Page for just your name combination as being low because a) much of the content is duplicate; b) there is far less actual content, some incomplete and few outbound links associated with your name, poor tagging on photos etc; c) most of the instances of your name occurring are in combination with “social media consulting”.
Hope that helps.
Angel
Hi Allen,
So I think your SEO friend is partially right. If you Google just your name your fan page DOES come up but not until Page 2 in the results and it shows up as:
Links on “Allen Mireles Social Media Consulting” | Facebook
What's interesting is if you follow that link it goes to the Facebook equivalent of a Wall RSS of your Fan Page.
Now, as other people have commented, if you add the terms “social media” or “social media consulting” to your name the FB Fan Page shows up as 3rd or 4th in the rankings on the first page. It comes up in the same manner as mentioned earlier.
If you look at your Fan Page, on the left column your outbound Links to Twitter, etc are not active as they are on your personal page. Nor is the Info tab well filled out.
My thought is that Google is ranking the relevancy of your Fan Page for just your name combination as being low because a) much of the content is duplicate; b) there is far less actual content, some incomplete and few outbound links associated with your name, poor tagging on photos etc; c) most of the instances of your name occurring are in combination with “social media consulting”.
Hope that helps.
Angel
I am running into the same issue with some of my clients. While my clients aren't listed I did find friends' fan pages that are.
I can not find a page in google that addresses this other than yours. Thanks for the post on this, it has been very helpful. Let us know if you find anything out.