Facebook expands search to better compete with Twitter, Google

Previously, searching on Facebook would return Pages a user liked or friended. Now it will return basically everything, but displayed in a more organized manner.

For example, searching “Benghazi Committee” pulls up results from people “Involved in This Story” (in this instance, a post from Sen. Harry Reid); “Top Posts” from publishers that I both follow and don’t; and posts from friends. Lastly, there’s a “Public Posts” section that retrieves the “most recent and relevant” messages.

Here’s what it looks like in action:

Facebook users make 1.5 billion searches each days, it says in a blog post, the aim is to make people aware of its capabilities. The social network has an image problem when it comes to search since people don’t turn to it first when it comes to breaking news, and it was difficult to sort through the myriad of results.

Perhaps this will change that perception.

Images via Facebook.