Manage your Facebook search engine display
26 May
Facebook (FB) recently enabled a public version of its users' profile pages to be indexed by Google and other search engines. While this is a good thing in my opinion (it could provide more detail in a web search for a particular person), it's worth reviewing what information appears on that public profile page. To my knowledge, FB didn't publicize this much so I've written a short tutorial here as I know most people have a FB account and this may be of use.
Log in to your FB account and look for the "Settings" menu near the upper-right corner of the screen. (At least, that's where it's at today; FB seems to be on a redesign kick every couple months.) Hover your mouse over it a moment and you'll get a short menu that will look something like the image at the right. Click "Privacy Settings."- A list of privacy areas appears. It's a good idea to review them all, but we're concerned here with "Search."
- The search privacy settings appear, which look like this:
If you'd like to eliminate any search engine results including a public profile of you, uncheck the "Public Search Listing" box. That's it; your profile page shouldn't appear in any search engine.
I've opted to keep my profile public, but I've reduced what information appears in it. By default, your friends and pages that you've become a FB "fan" of are shown. That's a little too much info to include in an search engine, I feel. I don't mind if people see that I have a FB account, but who I've chosen to friend or become a fan of is too personal to appear there. Allowing people to try and contact me through FB is fine, so I've left those options active.
I hope that's a useful tutorial for you to protect your personal information.
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hey scott,
i’m lovin your blog…the csa adventures, the coffee reviews. I thought the email signatures write-up was pretty thought-provoking, thanks. AND, it looks like you got a new look?? Nice…
Say hi to Crystal.
am i the only one who’s noticed that you can no longer opt out of the public listing? i’ve been searching for ages to see if i’m missing something — and not many people seem to have noticed or even care…
The public listing setting is still there–I just checked it. Try this link when you’re logged into Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/privacy/?ref=mb#/privacy/?view=search
Uncheck “Create a public listing for me” if you don’t want your FB profile to appear in search engine results.