Facebook quietly made a significant change to Graph Search. The feature recently received an update which allowed users to search for specific posts using the search feature, allowing users to search for much more than just people. Previously web results were displayed as well, which were powered by Bing. The update removed Bing results, it was first reported by Reuters, and later confirmed by Facebook.
VentureBeat received a statement from Facebook which confirmed that this change has been made. “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.”
Microsoft’s response remained neutral despite the fact that its product has been booted from Facebook search. The company said that it continues to partner with Facebook “in many different areas,” so if its troubled by this development, Redmond has a pretty good poker face.
It goes without saying though that people didn’t necessarily use Facebook search for web searches. That much Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself agreed on when he introduced Bing integration back in January 2013, saying “we don’t think a lot of people will come to Facebook to do web searches.”
There’s wild speculation these days that Facebook might want to get in on the search game itself, challenge the likes of Google, Yahoo and Bing with its own search engine. Facebook hasn’t confirmed or denied this possibility, it could go either way in the future.
Filed in . Read more about Bing (Microsoft) and Facebook.