Continuano gli sforzi di Google per potenziare il suo motore di ricerca, ottimizzandolo anche per il mobile e le app. Secondo quanto si legge sul Wall Street Journal, Big G e il social di Mark Zuckerberg hanno stretto nei giorni scorsi un accordo in base al quale Google potrà inserire tra i risultati delle ricerche effettuate dagli utenti da mobile anche i contenuti presenti su Facebook in profili, pagine di gruppi ed eventi pubblici.
Dall’accordo, spiegano sul sito, benefici deriveranno per entrambe le parti, con da una parte Google che potrà, soprattutto su mobile, fornire risultati più rilevanti agli utenti che fanno ricerche, mentre dall’altra Facebook che in questo modo vedrà aumentare il traffico sulle sue app.
Google Gets Surprise Ally in Mobile-App Search Push: Facebook
Google’s effort to keep its search engine relevant in a world of mobile apps just got a boost from a big rival. Facebook Inc., operator of the world’s largest social network, on Friday began allowing Google to crawl and index its mobile app, a spokeswoman for Google parent Alphabet Inc. said.
The agreement means that results from Google searches on smartphones will display some content from Facebook’s app, including public profile information. The listings will appear as “deep links” that will take users to the relevant part of the Facebook app, the spokeswoman said.
That largely mirrors how Google indexes information from public Facebook profiles on the Web. It also has access to content such as business listings called Pages, Groups and Events.
Google can’t show content shared through logged-in and private Facebook app sessions, meaning it is still locked out of most information inside the walled garden of Facebook’s social network. For those searches, users will have to use Facebook’s search service, which it recently updated.
However, Facebook’s cooperation is a sign that Google is making inroads in confronting a big challenge – searching inside apps. Google’s search engine is dominant on the Web, but its computers can’t automatically “crawl” and categorize the information inside apps, where smartphone users spend the majority of their time. So it must persuade app developers to let it peer inside.
“In mobile their position as the online starting point is at risk,” said Chris Maddern, co-founder of mobile-app discovery startup Button. “If people lose faith that they will find things they need by searching on Google, that’s bad for the company. Anything Google can do to maintain that position is good.”
Facebook’s agreement to let Google’s technology inside its app suggests the social network sees some benefit from the collaboration. That could include users who stay inside the Facebook app after following a Google search result there. “When people search for public Facebook content on the mobile web, those who use Facebook for Android can now click through and go straight to the Facebook app,” a Facebook spokeswoman wrote in an emailed statement.
