Facebook Announces Graph Search Roll Out, Improvements: How to Protect Your Privacy

Earlier in January, Facebook announced a revamped version of the site's search tool, Graph Search. Until this week, Graph Search had been in a limited public beta test, but starting Monday, July 8, and for the next few weeks, Facebook will finally be rolling out the new feature for all English-speaking Facebook users in the United States.

The initial report came on Sunday from ABC News, which announced that Facebook's Monday morning blog post would contain an update about the new service's availability. Hundreds of millions of people should be getting Graph Search this week.

"Everyone using US English should start seeing their search box automatically updated," said Facebook's news blog on Monday. "This is just the beginning. We're currently working on making it easier for people to search and discover topics, including posts and comments. We're also working on getting mobile Graph Search ready."

Graph Search signals a return by Facebook to its original mission, back before the site evolved into a social networking behemoth, when Mark Zuckerberg's network was limited to a few college campuses. As Facebook said in its original announcement of Graph Search, "When Facebook first launched, the main way most people used the site was to browse around, learn about people and make new connections. Graph Search takes us back to our roots and allows people to use the graph to make new connections."

Different than a web search, which brings up distinct sites based on keywords entered in the search query, Graph Search focuses on bringing up content based on phrases set in the search box. So a search of "Music my friends like" will look within your own connections and find their music preferences.

Likewise, a search of "photos of my friends in New York" will bring up their photos that were tagged for that city.

Other information from the social network can be found, including details like "people who like things I like," or "people who live in my city." These are all huge improvements over the very limited original Search feature on Facebook, but making all users' Facebook content so much more readily available to other Facebook users has raised some concerns about possible phishing attacks or cyberstalking.

Facebook has tried to alleviate these fears by providing information on how to control what public information people make available on Facebook. In its announcement Monday, Facebook explained, "As Graph Search rolls out more widely, everyone on Facebook will see a notice on their home page with a reminder about how to control what they share and with whom. This follows a similar notice in December that highlighted new privacy tools to help people manage what they share on Facebook."

Facebook says that over the past few months of beta testing, "tens of millions of people have helped improve the product just by using it and giving feedback."

Some of the improvements include faster searches, search suggestions, and displaying of results, an expanded vocabulary and grammar comprehension for queries, a better display of relevant results, and an improved interface.

Facebook won't require you to sign up for anything to use Graph Search. The new features will simply appear at the top of your Facebook page, in place of the old search bar, sometime this week or in the coming weeks. If you're concerned about your privacy with the new search system, check out our guide for controlling what information you leave open to Graph Search, and to Facebook in general.