Facebook Makes Profiles Searchable from the Home Page

Not on Facebook yet because you don't think you know anyone else on it? As of this morning at about 4 am Eastern time, Facebook has made it easier for non-members to find out who is already signed up.

Let me tell you how I found out - unlike the rest of the world, it wasn't from the announcement on Facebook's blog.

When I logged into my profile this morning, the page looked a bit different. At the very top was a can’t miss notice from Facebook.

It was Facebook’s notification that the public version of your profile was now searchable. I scratched my head thinking “What’s the big deal? My public page has been showing up in Google for weeks. ”

Then, I woke up a little bit and read more carefully — this was now going to be searchable by non-members from the Welcome page.

In light of the fact that people have told me they weren’t getting on Facebook because they think they don’t know anyone else who is on it, it may be encouraging for them to be able to check before they even sign up. I like the idea that in my public profile, a person could see a link to see how open (or closed) I am to getting a message from them, whether or not we were Facebook Friends.

But what if you’re already on Facebook, and you don’t necessarily want to be found? Maybe you only want people you know to be able to find you, but not to be able to send you a message unless you're friends.

Or what if you want people to have full visibility of you, but don’t know how to make your public page more accessible?

It’s easy. You can modify your privacy settings for your profile by clicking on Privacy in the upper right hand corner, which will take you to a page called Privacy Overview. Click on Search, which will take you to “Privacy Settings for Search”.

You’ll then see your options for changing your settings.

If you need more help, click here for some screenshots.