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September 25, 2012

Facebook searches to show up in Activity Log

The social network will allow users to browse as well as delete searches made on Facebook.

By Tineka Smith

The new search tool comes a year after Facebook first introduced the Activity Log to allow users to view and manage their activity on the site.

Starting today, Facebook members will be able to see the searches they make on Facebook along with other activity.
The new feature allows members to delete searches appearing on the Activity log. Facebook reminded users that no one can see a user’s activity log including their search activity.

"You can expect to see your Activity Log updated with your search activity over the next few weeks," said Facebook. "You can access this tool by going to the top of your profile, and going to Search from the activity sorter."

Facebook activity log

The new feature could be Facebook’s first steps into solidifying the social network as a social search platform. "We do 1 billion queries per day already and we’re basically not even trying," said Zuckerberg.

A recent study revealed that that Facebook could easily become the second most used search engine in major markets, with the exception of Russia, China, and Japan where it could come in third.

Greenlight’s Search and Social Survey found that if Facebook wanted to start its own search engine, the company could take 22% of the global search market.

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Facebook has over 900 million registered users and is the top social website globally. Thus, Facebook could have millions of dedicated users that might be easily influenced to use it as their preferred search engine.

Research revealed that 5% of those surveyed said they would definitely use Facebook if it launched a search engine to compete against Google’s.

12% of respondents said they would probably use Facebook over their preferred search engine and 9% said they didn’t know.

"These stats therefore suggest Facebook could capture around 22% of the global search market by simply launching its own search engine tomorrow morning (the ‘Definitely’, ‘Probably’, and half of the ‘Don’t know’ respondents combined) says Andreas Pouros, chief operating officer at Greenlight. "It wouldn’t need to be a spectacular engine either, just well integrated into the Facebook experience and generally competent."

Please follow this author on Twitter @Tineka_S or comment below.

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