The indicators were already there for everyone to see. In early 2013, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook’s Graph Search product and it was the first sign that Facebook was in the process of bidding adieu to Microsoft Bing’s integration. Mark was asked then about his relationship with Microsoft and the response was ‘it’s complicated’
So it is official now, Facebook search results will have nothing to do with Microsoft’s Bing search engine anymore. The social networking pioneer overhauls its search system to look for old posts and comments. Today the search will feature only Facebook engine whereas earlier it offered links to different websites via Bing. Not much has been said by Facebook about this change but the goal is amply clear- keep Facebook users within the walls of Facebook as much as possible.
According to Reuters, Facebook has stopped adding search results from Microsoft’s Bing to its Graph Search feature. The move had already started when Facebook rolled out changes for its search functionality for desktop and mobile at the start of the week. Facebook has now confirmed that it has stopped including Bing into its own search algorithm.
Facebook spokesperson said, “We’re not currently showing web search results in Facebook Search because we’re focused on helping people find what’s been shared with them on Facebook. We continue to have a great partnership with Microsoft in lots of different areas.”
Facebook and Microsoft have a long standing relationship from 2007. Then the software leader had invested $240 million for 1.6% stake in the fledgling company. The current value of Facebook is said to be in a tune of $211 billion and Microsoft would like to remain in partnership with the social networking giant.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, search is the most important growth area for the company. Mark said that in July more than 1 billion searches were made. So he is implying that people will one day drop Google or Bing and use Facebook to search for information.
Zuckerberg told analysts in a conference call in July, “There is more than a trillion posts, which some of the search engineers on the team like to remind me, is bigger than any Web search corpus out there.”
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