On Tuesday WebProNews reported that Facebook had been granted a search based patent. Although they applied for the patent back in 2004, good planning probably.

Facebook is no longer, and hasn’t been for a while, a place for university students to chat and share photos, it’s become a society. A mini culture that, not only groups of friends join but businesses and brands. If it continues to constantly attract companies to its Pages section then Facebook will have a lot of search authority.

We’ve been talking about Facebook and its SEO potential quite a bit over the last few months and I don’t know if I’m in the minority but I am not a massive fan of Facebook. I find it annoying, frustrating and not that intuitive. I don’t think by becoming a search engine it would improve or make me want to use it more.

I think the people that use Google, Yahoo and Bing are of a broader demographic than the people that use Facebook. If a receptionist needs to book a hotel for their boss in a Birmingham are they going to log into Facebook and have a look through there or are they more likely to do a quick search in Google/Yahoo/Bing? The search engine of course, this is a fact*.

So although I think Facebook would have potential as a search engine I don’t think it could ever steal Google’s crown. It could steal the younger internet users who are attached to their accounts but never take the SEO kingdom.

*Hypothetical fact

Over at WebProNews the ever delightful Chris Crum has an article reporting July’s search market statistics (for the good ‘ol US of A).

No surprise; Google is still top dog, Bing is making waves and Yahoo has been losing ground over the last year (a nice selection of metaphors).

One interesting stat The Crumster picked out was that searches in America are down from 10.5 billion to 8.8 billion.

This stat is probably linked to the rise and rise of smartphones and the popularity of apps.

I wonder if the recession has made any difference, people will have less disposable cash therefore being reluctant to buy/do things, though surely people use the internet to look for deals…hmmm. Sorry, wasn’t very conclusive there was I?

Google’s been expanding as a brand, Bing’s been trying hard to increase market share, there haven’t been any acts of debauchery linked to any of the major search engines (though there was that whole Google Street View thing); after that high level of analysis I guess that leaves us with smartphones and apps.

I think the Nielsen figures may be a bit flawed. People with smartphones have them by their side all day, they have the internet with them all day. If they have a question, if they want to find out something important (like; Dany N’Guessan goals) they can do that within about 10 secs. So surely these users will make use of search engines, what else will they be using their smartphones for? Making phone calls? No.

If searches had been in decline for the past year I don’t think SEO would be doing as well as it is.

Does this information bring up another point, will there come a time where someone develops a search engine especially for smartphones? At the moment there are sites which have mobile versions, in the future, will we have  Google SERPs that take smartphones screen size, chubby fingers and the fact you’re probably making the search in a bar, trying to prove a friend wrong, into account?

Google’s dominance remains solid but with Bing and Yahoo’s search engine union looking to be completed in the next few weeks there could actually be another option when making a search.

Over at Web Pro News they have the latest data from Chikita showing Bing is now the number two search engine, taking the place of Yahoo.

But with Yahoo’s searches to be powered by Bing I doubt if Yahoo has put as much emphasis on advertising their organic search engine over the last year or so.

Google’s contract with Mozilla is expiring next year meaning that we could see a little bit of a bidding war to become the default search engine of Firefox. Currently, searches using Google on Firefox outnumber Bing and Yahoo’s total searches.

Bing has a powerful ally in Facebook, though at the moment it isn’t necessarily helping it increase in the search engine market however it is exposing 500 million people a day to Bing as a brand and another option.

Bing will definitely have their eyes on the mobile market with Windows Phone 7 arrival in the near future. Smart phones have taken off big-time over the last year. Now there is a choice rather than just the iPhone, and this competition will increase bringing down prices making Smart phones more affordable and ubiquitous. Expect a focus on mobile search engines next year (I guarantee it, hold me to this, this will definitely happen, definitely, maybe).

Next year could see a huge shift in the SEO landscape and with Facebook looking to put down Google’s attempt at social marketing before it starts there probably won’t be a better time to de-throne Google.

A now removed Tweet by Digg founder Kevin Rose suggested Google were developing a social network to rival Facebook.

I can’t imagine it being too much of surprise to most people seeing how popular Facebook is and how much data they have access to.

Pete Cashmore, CEO of Mashable and social networking blogger for CNN, brought up some interesting points regarding Google’s possible entry into the social networking game.

Cashmore believes Google is growing envious of Facebook’s treasure trove of data it has collected (and continues to collect) from its users, especially since the ‘Likes’ feature was implemented into more than 50,000 websites. Meaning many users preferences are recorded allowing targeted and specific advertising.

As well as being envious Google is probably worried that Facebook could pose a threat to their own dominance/profit-margin.

The ‘Likes’ feature could form the foundations of a search engine, with ranking determined by the amount of ‘Likes’. It would only take a subtle change for Facebook to allow its users to search the Internet for relevant content from their profile or news page, more or less meaning people would be using Facebook for everything except shopping (which is bound to come).

Is there a demand for a Facebook rival? A little. Consumers like competition, it breeds choice, better service and cheaper prices and at the moment there is no real alternative to Facebook.

Within the next couple of years we will probably see Google jump into social networking and Facebook step up its SEO relevance. With Bing powering Facebook’s search engine it’s taken a small step but if the ‘Likes’ feature continues and maintains its popularity then we could be implementing ‘Likes’ onto all web sites.

P.S. The Internet changes so fast there’ll probably be some new form of communication this time next year; psychic or the use of robot avatars.

Chris Crum over at Web Pro News has been keeping an eye on the increasing likelihood of Bing becoming more competitive in the SEO game.

With Yahoo and Bing coming together later this year Bing is becoming the main rival to Google.  Bing is the default search engine for the Opera browser and also Verizion’s Blackberry (in the good ol’ US of A). Hewlett–Packard computers will have Bing as the default search engine over the next 3 years.

And, as Nick and James pointed out a couple of weeks ago, Bing is in the start menu of Windows 7 and Vista and IE is the default browser of Windows, which, of course, has Bing as it’s search engine. So with 70% of computers being PCs, and therefore likely to be running Windows, they have potential to wrestle some market share from Google.

Bing is on the right track but it’s going up against Google which has become a brand and is even used in daily speech (‘Oh, yeah, I Googled it’). Google isn’t just a search engine anymore.

Moving onto the technical side of Bing, it’s webmaster tools allows you to see the types of links that are coming into the site and their value. Useful for SEO, if you can identify a particular sector/area where links are coming from.

But Bing has recently made some changes to their tool. They listened to users and implemented the non-crazy ideas.

I’ll give you a brief overview of the changes.

-    Bing wants to now focus on three key areas with their webmaster tools: Crawl, Index, and Traffic.

-    It will allow you to submit individual URLs to Bing that should be prioritized by their robots.

-    You will be able to block cache links, block individual URLs, block whole folders of pages, or even block your entire website from appearing in SERPs.

Bing’s webmaster tools are now more comprehensive than Google’s and that will be attractive to SEO companies. Though will the general public care? They don’t hear about this kind of news; they just want to find the most relevant result from their search.

So, Bing has the potential but will it knock Google off the top-spot?