The need to use Google has been on a downward trend in modern society. This is largely attributable to the prominence of mobile apps that can do much more than they could in the past. Google has been using App indexing in its efforts to keep its search engine relevant. App indexing displays a developer’s app content in Google search results. This enables users who have a developer’s application installed to access content within the app directly from Google’s search result.
For quite some time now, Google has been crawling and indexing Facebook user profiles with other pertinent information through the social network on the web; however, those times are in the past as Facebook Inc., the world’s largest social network operator, allowed Google to start crawling and indexing its mobile app.
According to the agreement, results from Google searches on smartphones will display some content from Facebook’s app that will include public profile information. The listings are set to appear as deep links that will take users to the relevant part of the Facebook app. Google will also have access to content such as business listings called groups, events and pages.
Nonetheless, Google is still locked from displaying content that is shared via logged-in and private Facebook app sessions. This means that the search engine cannot show most information within the social network. If one is in need of those searches, they will be required to use Facebook’s search service, which has been updated recently.
The partnership with Facebook shows that Google is making inroads in confronting the challenge of searching inside apps. Despite its dominance as a search engine, computers do not have the ability to automatically crawl and categorize the information inside apps where most smartphone users spend the majority of their time. For this reason, it has to influence app developers to let it rake inside.
Google needs to do everything it can to maintain its position as the online starting point. This position is already at risk in the mobile world. It would negatively and greatly impact the company if people lost their faith in finding what they need by searching on Google.
For Facebook, the partnership suggests that the social network is set to benefit by allowing Google’s technology inside its app. Facebook wants users to remain on the Facebook app after being led there by a Google research result. The move is also a win for Google whose dominance as a search engine is threatened by Facebook because of the time its users spend on the social network.