Facebook recently held its annual F8 developers conference. This is a big collection of Facebook developers and is pretty heady stuff if you like that sort of thing. The specifics and pros were discussed in an article by Last Click News titled
New Facebook plugin can be integrated with SEO
The first type that was introduced was social plugin, which can be integrated into a website. These plugins include a ‘Like’ button along with Activity and Recommendation feeds.
The ‘Like’ button allows users to bookmark certain sites, which will be viewable by their friends to see. The Activity and Recommendation feeds will work in a similar way, and these two plugins will allow the user’s friends to see how he/she interacted with a site.
Open Graph and Graph API, the remaining two plugins, are developer’s tools. They allow businesses to easily integrate Facebook features into their websites.
Open Graph allows users to store personal data, which allows developers to polish their websites in response to the likes and dislikes of users.
Experts claim that the ‘Like’ button can have effects on SEO. This plugin can be easily integrated to search algorithms.
Personally, I am still leery of the looming database of knowledge about my innermost likes and dislikes not to mention my friends and associates. It’s not that I have anything to hide really – I am very boring – but it is that I want to know that I need a Big Mac before McDonald’s does. Or I want to know that I am getting sick before the ad to purchase Pepto Bismol jumps in my face.
Professionally, it’s my business and I have been bombarded with unwanted stuff from marketers for years so this should be a welcome change – get only what I want, when I want it. It is so much more productive for both of us.
But I would like to know what I want before they do.