Facebook Profiles on the Search Engines

Blimey I was actually right about something!  A couple of weeks ago I commented on the possibility of Google showing Facebook profiles in their search engine listings… and then…. last Wednesday Facebook made limited public search listings available via the search engines.  From the example shown here the information is as basic as what you’d see if you were registered on Facebook but not “friends” with the person in question.  However, you can opt out of having even this basic amount of information available to the search engines by changing your “Search Privacy” settings.

I’m quite happy with this – in fact I’d like them to offer the option of having more than those basic details available.  As a recruitment researcher it’d be great to just do one quick Google search for a candidate name and find their listings on all the social networking sites (LinkedIn, Xing, Ecademy, etc AND Facebook).  Of course I’m sure there are plenty of people who aren’t so happy about it.

One word of warning, if you are going to allow your profile up on the web and you may be on the job market – it might be worth putting up an appropriate profile photo…