One of the largest downfalls of Facebook applications was the inability to have them show up in the search engines. Why would I go produce content for a Facebook application when it won’t show up in the search engine? Obviously to get access to viral growth but search engine optimization (SEO) can produce ongoing traffic that is potentially greater. According to Om Malik, Facebook applications will soon be SEOable. Not only has newsfeed optimization become less relevant but this update could change the game completely.

Combined with Facebook’s great page rank, applications will have the ability to combine indexable content and viral growth by leveraging the social graph. Imagine the complex strategies that will be developed for this. As Eric Eldon of VentureBeat told me, “It’s a beautiful combination of app developers who game Facebook and SEO types who game Google.” I think Eric has hit the nail on the head and this change by Facebook will help keep developers building on the platform rather then turning away after their application fails at growing in the social graph.

With new opportunity comes new challenges as well. Facebook will need to be careful with balancing users’ privacy. Facebook has never been afraid of controversy though. Imagine an application where there is content from other users who don’t realize that their comments are being indexed. Suddenly something shows up in the search engines with their content and they weren’t expecting it to be displayed. Currently this is all speculation and Facebook may choose to add features that protect users.

Whatever Facebook decides to do, this will be a major change that will change the Facebook platform landscape. It’s a change that I welcome. What do you think the impact of these changes will be?