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Facebook To Retire Who Can Look Me Up” Search Setting, Finalizing Changes Announced Last Year

Amy Gesenhues on October 10, 2013 at 4:11 pm

Facebook logo Facebook announced today it would be completing the removal of its “Who can look up my timeline by name?” search setting.

Last December, the company announced the search setting would be automatically retired for users no longer taking advantage of it, with a “small percentage of people” still using the search setting able to access it.

With today’s announcement, any users who still have access to the “Who can look up my timeline by name” search setting will begin seeing the following reminder that the setting is soon to be retired:

Facebook search setting removal reminder_Oct2013

The search setting allowed users to control if they could be found when their name was typed into the search bar. According to Facebook, the introduction of its Graph Search and the site’s advanced search capabilities, limited the setting’s reach:

The setting was created when Facebook was a simple directory of profiles and it was very limited. For example, it didn’t prevent people from navigating to your Timeline by clicking your name in a story in News Feed, or from a mutual friend’s Timeline.

You can read more about Facebook’s announcement, and further insight on its search settings, on our partner site at Search Engine Land: “Facebook To Retire ‘Who Can Look Up My Timeline By Name’ Search Setting For All Users.”

About The Author

Amy Gesenhues

Amy Gesenhues is Third Door Media's General Assignment Reporter, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs.com, SoftwareCEO.com, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.