Facebook and Bing merge SEO is DEAD!!

Actually, SEO isn’t dead at all…but the Facebook/Bing merge is likely to evolve the way users search, potentially.

Microsoft has deepened its ties with Facebook, bolstering Bing to catch up with Google. Simply Bing will now use data posted on Facebook such as ‘likes’ or preferences and to use this information to provide more relevant and timely search results.

Checkout Bing’s Facebook page for all the details, or scroll down for more:

Potentially this pushes web searches, one of the internet’s earliest activities, in a new direction. Or maybe just tangent of what Google already does?!

It underscores the growing competition between Facebook’s 500 million member service and Google, whose search business has dominated the web in past years.

“Google owned the old web, the content-centric web. Facebook has early leadership in the new web, the social web,” said Ray Valdes, an analyst with Gartner. “This is the real long-term conflict. Microsoft, in that sense, is a secondary player in this new battle.”

We believe that the new social search features are unlikely to immediately boost Bing’s market share, although it is noted that it has been creeping up since launching last year, though this deal allows Bing to differentiate itself, with further access to information that Google doesn’t have.

Facebook executives states that they hope other search engines will adopt their social data in the future, but chief technology officer Bret Taylor said for the moment they are only working with Microsoft for the time being: “Right now Microsoft is such a close partner to us that for the foreseeable future I think we just will be working with Microsoft.”

Microsoft invested $240 million (€170 million) in Facebook in 2007, giving it a 1.6% stake.

A Google spokesman said the company welcomes competition that helps deliver useful information and expands user choice, and that having strong competitors benefits Google by making the company work harder. Good form we say!!

Microsoft, has recently stepped up its efforts within its online services division, though it did lose $2.3 billion last year, to challenge the dominance of Google, the world’s largest search engine.

Facebook data offers important “signals” to refine search results. Bing will be able to access users’ public profiles and their “likes” on Facebook, and provide search results tailored to individual preferences.

“The thing that makes Microsoft a great partner for us is that they really are the underdog here,” said Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. “Because of that, they are in a structural position where they’re incentivised to go all out and innovate.”