14 DAY TRIAL // Google is giving website and blog owners one more reason to use Facebook comments. Or, rather, it's making the decision easier, since Facebook comments on third-party sites are now indexed and can show up in Google search results.
This is a recent development since the Facebook Comments plugin, just like most if not all of the other third-party commenting platforms uses JavaScript for most of the elements and the content.
This makes it hard or downright impossible for the Googlebot to read the comments via the regular methods. Instead it has to run the JavaScript code and then extract the content from there.
Regardless of how it does it, it is now clear that Google can read comments created via the Facebook Comments box, as Digital Inspiration noticed.
The chances of spotting a Facebook Comment in the search results at random is pretty slim, but if you want to check out the feature for yourself, just find a comment on any site and search for a portion of it, Google should discover it rather easily.
This change could be important for website owners that use Facebook Comments since it means that the content of those comments will be used in search results and they will factor in for the page's ranking.
Granted, Facebook Comments tend to be somewhat cleaner than on platforms that allow anonymous comments so it probably won't mean that admins now have to police comments harder.
The Facebook Comments plugin enables website owners to add comments to their site without having to deal with all of the problems that brings, like spam and unruly users, since only logged in users can comment.
Thankfully, the plugin supports more than just Facebook accounts, Yahoo, AOL or Hotmail users can post as well. Notably Google accounts are not supported, nor Twitter.