The Facebook Blog

UPDATE on Tuesday, May 24: Bing has rolled out their social search features more broadly. Now more people can see what their friends have liked when searching on Bing.com. Learn more about the new features here and go to bing.com to check it out for yourself.

Search is about finding information to help you make decisions. Every day, most of us make decisions with input from people we trust. I ask people I work with where to find the best coffee in town; I ask my parents whether I should buy a house; I talk to my friends about the best fall... television shows.

Discovering and making connections to friends, applications and other voices is an important part of your experience on Facebook. That's why today we are rolling out an improvement to Search to help you quickly find and connect with the people, Pages, groups, events and applications you care about.

Now as you're typing in a query in the search bar, you will instantaneously see results not only of the people, events, groups and Pages you're connected with but also the connections of your friends and globally relevant results. You'll see a wider... variety of relevant results and be able to discover new connections you might want to make on Facebook right as you're entering your search.

For example, if you start typing in "MGM" to find the Facebook Page for the band MGMT, you may see it as the first result in the drop-down menu because you or one of your friends is a fan of MGMT on Facebook. You can simply hit enter on that result and you will be taken directly to the MGMT Page.

If you are searching for something else, like the MGM Grand Las Vegas hotel or the movie studio MGM, you can select one of those instead from the drop-down menu.



If you don't see what you are looking for in the drop-down menu, you can go to the search results page by selecting "See More Results" from the bottom of the drop-down menu. You'll be taken to the full results, where you can sort by different categories and refine your search further.

We're rolling these changes out gradually over the next few days, so you may not see the new results just yet.


Wayne, a Facebook engineer, is searching for friends who play Pet Society.

Last month, we began testing new versions of Search with a small group of people on Facebook. Based on the success of those tests, we're rolling out a new version of Search to everyone on the site beginning today.

You now will be able to search the last 30 days of your News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you're a fan. If people have chosen to make their content available to everyone, you also will be able to search for their status updates, links and notes,... regardless of whether or not you are friends. Search results will continue to include people's profiles as well as relevant Facebook Pages, groups and applications.

To search for a particular term, just enter your query in the search box in the upper-right corner of any page. Once you're taken to the search results, use the filters on the left-hand side of the page to view only posts by friends or posts by everyone. If you're searching for a specific person, Page, group or application, you also can filter by those results.

By being able to search more types of content that are being shared on the site, you can easily find out your friends' evening plans and recently frequented restaurants by searching for "dinner," discover which of your friends are following Michael Schumacher's comeback during the "Formula 1" season by searching for the race series, or query "economy" to see if people or your favorite news sources feel that the recession is turning around. You also can search for a company or product to learn what people are saying about that brand.

Earlier today, I used Facebook Search to get the latest about our recent acquisition of FriendFeed, an innovative service for sharing online. When I enter "FriendFeed" in the "Search" field in the upper-right hand corner of any page on Facebook, I get the most recent status updates, reactions and news from my friends who work in technology and people who have chosen to make their content available to everyone. I also can find the official FriendFeed Page on Facebook and user groups related to FriendFeed.



Remember that you can always control what content you're sharing in other people's search results by editing your privacy settings here.

We hope that these improvements to Search will help you connect with and find information about the people and things you care about more easily. We're rolling these changes out over the course of the next few days, so you may not see the new results just yet.


Akhil, an engineering manager, is searching for what his friends are saying about the new Facebook Search.

People may manage their Inboxes differently, but they all face times when they need to quickly find important messages from friends or stop unwanted messages. We're simplifying the Inbox to make it easier for you to find, read and control your Facebook messages. We've already begun testing the new interface for the Inbox, and we will be rolling it out to more of you over the coming weeks.

The new Inbox design gives you more control over organizing messages and choosing which messages you receive. You'll notice that there are now filters at the... top of your Inbox to help you identify unread messages as well as to report any spam, or unwanted messages, you may receive. This complements our ongoing efforts to keep your experience on the site uncluttered and secure.

To find specific messages within your Inbox, you can type a keyword or a friend's name in the search box in the upper-left corner of the screen. As before, you can view Updates from the Facebook Pages you are connected with by selecting the "Updates" category in the left-side navigation. These are messages sent by the businesses, public figures, musicians and other organizations you've become a fan of on Facebook. You can manage subscriptions to Updates by clicking the "Edit Subscriptions" link beneath Inbox of Updates. Over time, we plan to migrate messages from Groups and Events to Updates as well, so you have more control over the communication you receive.

Scott, a product manager, has no unread messages thanks to the new Inbox.

Today, we're beginning to test new versions of Facebook Search with a small group — just a fraction of a percent of the people on Facebook. Those of you in the test group will be able to find content from the people, organizations and public figures that matter to you as soon as they share it on Facebook. Testing potential features is an important part of our product development process. These tests tell us if new features benefit people in the way we think they will, what we might do to make them even better, and in some instances, when we... need to go back to the drawing board.

Those of you in the test group will see new layouts for search results that will continue to include people's profiles, Facebook Pages, groups and applications, and some entirely new Search features. With the test, you will be able to search your News Feed for the most recent status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you're a fan. You will also be able to search for status updates, posted links and notes in Search from people who have chosen to make their profile and content available to everyone. As always, you can control what content you're sharing by editing your privacy settings here.

The people around us are a powerful source for finding information about new and interesting information — from the latest on last night's episode of "The Office" and suggestions on what to do for your next vacation to current events.

I'm interested in the latest updates on the aftermath of the Iranian election. By entering the term "Iran" in the "Search" field in the upper-right corner of any page on Facebook, I will see up-to-the-minute results from my friends and the Facebook Pages of which I'm a fan, not to mention people who have chosen to make their profile and content available to everyone. I'm able to discover what blogs and news sources my friends are following, what my friends are saying about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, and how people in general are reacting to the election results.

In the coming weeks, as we learn more from the different test versions of Search, we'll keep making improvements and may expand the test to more people.


Kari, an engineer, is ready, set, start your Facebook Search engines.