Facebook Advanced Search Is Officially Gone For Good

Last year I noted that Facebook’s advanced search functionality had become de-emphasized and was difficult to access, unless you knew the actual URL. As of this weekend, Facebook has killed advanced profile search all together. That means if you want to browse through users based on their location or profile information, you are going to be forced to use other applications that provide such functionality.

While Facebook still enables some basic search functionality, browsing through local Facebook users is no longer a possibility without including some form of keyword search. Facebook has slowly been phasing out various user search features, some of which probably shouldn’t be removed. For example if you want to view all of your friends in a specific location, you can no longer do so.

It doesn’t make much sense considering that if you travel somewhere, you’ll probably want to filter your friends by geographic network. I’ll save that for another blog post though. For now, all those users that wanted to troll for local Facebook users to either hit on them or just connect in general, will no longer be able to do so. Facebook is officially a place for friends and if you’re looking for anything else, you’ll have to use one of the 80,000+ applications on the platform.

Did you still use Facebook’s profile/advanced search functionality?

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751932 Comments2009-09-07+13%3A41%3A14Nick+O%27Neill »

This is rather odd of them to remove it. If people want to use Facebook as any sort of contact list, they need a few basic filters…

I just checked and you're right–no more way to filter by location–WTF??? Do I have to group all my friends manually when data is already there to do this automatically?

My guess is that this is being removed to make way for a very different sort of search engine from Facebook. Perhaps they'll allow for advanced features for premium users or only allow those features for advertiser targeting, etc.

Comment by Jared Goralnick — September 7, 2009 @ 6:07 am
Is this in an effort to force developers to leverage FQL and the Facebook developer platform to search profiles?

Comment by Bob — September 7, 2009 @ 6:48 am
this is crazy cant log in for 1 week,whats happening,any ideas out there?

Comment by Chamu Muwalo — September 7, 2009 @ 10:15 am
This is crazy. Being able to browse or search by location and network was one of the best features of Facebook! I used it frequently. They need to re-enable this feature or give a really good explanation as to why they've taken it off.

Comment by Eli — September 7, 2009 @ 12:17 pm
they need to make search api.. so users will have choice

Comment by search api — September 7, 2009 @ 7:48 pm
Good. Facebook now has even less in common with sites like Myspace than it did. The site IS “a place for friends”, there isn’t more of an explanation needed. Facebook is not a dating service. I suspect the move had much to do with the trolls you mentioned above and that we will see some sort of new geographic filter for existing friends being released to account for the loss of that ability soon. Gotta love the opportunities this will create for developers too!

Comment by Apps-R-Us — September 8, 2009 @ 3:32 am
I used that feature once while i was abroad for tha weekend and had nothing to bang on saturday night. I found a good profile and with some social engineering had a good night of fun.

Comment by Nicolas — September 8, 2009 @ 6:12 am
What apps would you recommend to create advanced filtering?

Comment by John Haydon — September 8, 2009 @ 1:39 pm
It's a loselose scenario for Facebook. On one hand you have people complaining that it's gone because there really are honest people just browsing the services. But if someone is date raped because they hooked up via this Facebook feature, it's a lawsuit and bad press.

Stinks.

Comment by Mike — September 9, 2009 @ 3:54 am
WTF…!? Does this mean one can't search for ANYBODY…!?

Or, not without a whole lot of hassle and complication -typical!

If people put up stuff that's provacative and suggestive etc, then that's THEIR problem if it all blows back on them and they don't like it. Hey, why should the rest of us suffer a loss of an essential feature just because of these sueing-happy ****s.

Comment by CatBar — September 13, 2009 @ 2:41 am
If only google would take over facebook and show them how business is done…

Comment by Aaron — September 14, 2009 @ 8:37 pm
the filter is still there, but anytime i choose a filtering criteria, it comes up with no results (which i know is not true), so it's been disabled but still exists: http://www.facebook.com/networks/networks.php

Comment by jason e. — September 17, 2009 @ 8:52 am
Nick, thanks for pointing this out. I used this functionality a lot and was wondering where it had gone. Any suggestions on apps that can be a worthy substitute? The app that is mostly mentioned "advanced search" is really too bad.

Comment by Tim De P. — September 24, 2009 @ 4:58 am
I understand this to some extent because they are trying to protect people’s privacy, but eliminating this feature is pretty aggravating. There have been plenty of times where i’ve been at a party, been really drunk, met a cool person and wanted to friend them, but all I knew was their first name and that they were a certain major. Profile Search allowed me to at least narrow the choices when trying to find people that i don’t have specific info like first and last name together. It’s really disappointing that I can’t do this anymore.

Comment by Robert C — September 25, 2009 @ 10:49 pm
If trolls was the problem why not just give people the option of being located by location, or not? That way all the young cute females could switch it off so they don’t get hassled and all the other normal, old or ugly people could leave it switched on so their mates could find them. Very silly of facebook.

Comment by Matt — September 30, 2009 @ 9:30 pm
This is too bad, i loved the ability of finding people while just remembering a few infos about them. Facebook was like a people directory or something.

Besides i think the privacy settings are already powerful enough to let people chose whether they want their location to be accessible or not.

Comment by David — October 14, 2009 @ 12:38 pm
This sucks. I was wondering what happened to the advanced search options, such as by school or city or occupation. They need to bring it back. Facebook?! Are you listening?!

Comment by jjhelga — November 2, 2009 @ 5:16 am
FORGIVE THE CAPS, BUT I WANTED TO CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS POST:

When searching for someone by Name and Location, use the following format in the search field (box):

NAME;LOCATION

Comment by Nameless — November 27, 2009 @ 10:05 am
I used AS mostly to ID phone numbers so that I wouldn't have to send that embarrassing "who are you?" text when I received a text message from someone whose number didn't pop up on my phone (either because of deliberate deletion or unintentional loss). Eep.

Comment by Facebook User — November 27, 2009 @ 10:26 am
The removal of Advanced Search (as well as Courses) really bothered me as well. I got acquainted with a number of people that way. Now I can't even see which of my Friends share things in common without looking at each of their pages!

It's odd that text in the Political Views, Religious Views, Activities, Interests, etc. continue to be linked. It returns just Groups, Pages, Posts by Friends, and Web Results now, which can be done by typing in the Search window anyway.

Are there applications which genuinely permit such searches?

Comment by Chris — December 7, 2009 @ 10:24 pm
Why China Blocked " facebook" i dont get it….hellooooo anyone out there know how can i get connected to facebook from this country plz??

Comment by ms belle — December 22, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
Really frustrating….Really hard to search for friends in different networks, especially if they have generic names…I also really liked being able to see who liked some of the same music artists as me…. Why would you not at least be able to get results for people on your friend list that have things in common with you? This was one of my favorite features. I really don’t understand why they would remove these features- less isn’t more in this situation.

Comment by Jimmy — January 4, 2010 @ 11:26 pm
I USED IT all the freaking time! SO FRUSTRATED!!!

Comment by emilie — January 8, 2010 @ 9:22 am
in order to contact chinese people from china, i suggest u can use http://www.renren.com/ instead. it's similar to facebook,

Comment by Vicky Bicky — January 9, 2010 @ 7:32 pm
Facebook like many other sites is trying to make sure people can not get around conveniently. Why have someone find what they want in 20 seconds when you can force them to search for ours through adding hundreds of friends and plunking away on they're PC's forever to find what they are looking for.

that way they can maximize they're profits. Any social website that allows advanced search quickly becomes a "dating website" and the same old story unfolds, very quickly a small number of women/men monopolize all the attention and people get tired & lonely from being ignored or pouring all they're effort and receiving nothing in return. This will happen eventually but social networks just try to slow the process so they can make the most money.

Online communities are the epitome of matriarchy

Comment by Aaron — March 20, 2010 @ 3:27 pm
I just tried doing a search for someone I know lives in California, but there are too many options for California. It won't allow me to search through the entire state like I can with some other states. I'm pretty sure California is not the only state that has too many things with the same name. It's really a hassle because I can't find my friend without going through several pages, and that's assuming she even used her real name (or haven't change it)

Comment by chris — March 30, 2010 @ 9:34 am
I always thought that change should be for the better – someone please pass that on to FB!!!!

Comment by Allen — April 21, 2010 @ 12:24 pm
That sucks!

Comment by T — July 5, 2010 @ 12:32 am
[...] Facebook killed their advanced search functionality last year, a minor uprising ensued just as happened before with many changes to the [...]

Pingback by Facebook Currently Testing Profile Search Without Filters — September 14, 2010 @ 10:09 am
yeah, this is really stupid. I can't honestly believe that Facebook has gotten away with this. Not being able to find friends (I'm not even talking about strangers, but people who have AGREED to be connected with you on facebook) who are in a geographical area to which you're travelling, or friends who like a certain band when you want to get a group together to see them when they're in town. How can they really call themselves a social networking site? Going through all my friends' individual pages to get this info isn't worth the time. Any word about a decent app which would restore this functionality?

Comment by Isabel — September 14, 2010 @ 10:24 am
I know this went away a long time ago, when Facebook basically added that new RSS feed to the site. Its really lame and if they took it away because of lawsuits and what not give me a break. AOL had this feature since 93' till its day of death probably around 05'. It was called (Member Directory) being able to search people by common interests such as schools, music, location, age, etc..

Comment by topher — January 10, 2011 @ 10:50 pm
koj puas tseem nyob zooo

Comment by lee — October 7, 2011 @ 5:06 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

This is rather odd of them to remove it. If people want to use Facebook as any sort of contact list, they need a few basic filters…

I just checked and you're right–no more way to filter by location–WTF??? Do I have to group all my friends manually when data is already there to do this automatically?

My guess is that this is being removed to make way for a very different sort of search engine from Facebook. Perhaps they'll allow for advanced features for premium users or only allow those features for advertiser targeting, etc.

Comment by Jared Goralnick — September 7, 2009 @ 6:07 am

Is this in an effort to force developers to leverage FQL and the Facebook developer platform to search profiles?

Comment by Bob — September 7, 2009 @ 6:48 am

this is crazy cant log in for 1 week,whats happening,any ideas out there?

Comment by Chamu Muwalo — September 7, 2009 @ 10:15 am

This is crazy. Being able to browse or search by location and network was one of the best features of Facebook! I used it frequently. They need to re-enable this feature or give a really good explanation as to why they've taken it off.

Comment by Eli — September 7, 2009 @ 12:17 pm

they need to make search api.. so users will have choice

Comment by search api — September 7, 2009 @ 7:48 pm

Good. Facebook now has even less in common with sites like Myspace than it did. The site IS “a place for friends”, there isn’t more of an explanation needed. Facebook is not a dating service. I suspect the move had much to do with the trolls you mentioned above and that we will see some sort of new geographic filter for existing friends being released to account for the loss of that ability soon. Gotta love the opportunities this will create for developers too!

Comment by Apps-R-Us — September 8, 2009 @ 3:32 am

I used that feature once while i was abroad for tha weekend and had nothing to bang on saturday night. I found a good profile and with some social engineering had a good night of fun.

Comment by Nicolas — September 8, 2009 @ 6:12 am

What apps would you recommend to create advanced filtering?

Comment by John Haydon — September 8, 2009 @ 1:39 pm

It's a loselose scenario for Facebook. On one hand you have people complaining that it's gone because there really are honest people just browsing the services. But if someone is date raped because they hooked up via this Facebook feature, it's a lawsuit and bad press.

Stinks.

Comment by Mike — September 9, 2009 @ 3:54 am

WTF…!? Does this mean one can't search for ANYBODY…!?

Or, not without a whole lot of hassle and complication -typical!

If people put up stuff that's provacative and suggestive etc, then that's THEIR problem if it all blows back on them and they don't like it. Hey, why should the rest of us suffer a loss of an essential feature just because of these sueing-happy ****s.

Comment by CatBar — September 13, 2009 @ 2:41 am

If only google would take over facebook and show them how business is done…

Comment by Aaron — September 14, 2009 @ 8:37 pm

the filter is still there, but anytime i choose a filtering criteria, it comes up with no results (which i know is not true), so it's been disabled but still exists: http://www.facebook.com/networks/networks.php

Comment by jason e. — September 17, 2009 @ 8:52 am

Nick, thanks for pointing this out. I used this functionality a lot and was wondering where it had gone. Any suggestions on apps that can be a worthy substitute? The app that is mostly mentioned "advanced search" is really too bad.

Comment by Tim De P. — September 24, 2009 @ 4:58 am

I understand this to some extent because they are trying to protect people’s privacy, but eliminating this feature is pretty aggravating. There have been plenty of times where i’ve been at a party, been really drunk, met a cool person and wanted to friend them, but all I knew was their first name and that they were a certain major. Profile Search allowed me to at least narrow the choices when trying to find people that i don’t have specific info like first and last name together. It’s really disappointing that I can’t do this anymore.

Comment by Robert C — September 25, 2009 @ 10:49 pm

If trolls was the problem why not just give people the option of being located by location, or not? That way all the young cute females could switch it off so they don’t get hassled and all the other normal, old or ugly people could leave it switched on so their mates could find them. Very silly of facebook.

Comment by Matt — September 30, 2009 @ 9:30 pm

This is too bad, i loved the ability of finding people while just remembering a few infos about them. Facebook was like a people directory or something.

Besides i think the privacy settings are already powerful enough to let people chose whether they want their location to be accessible or not.

Comment by David — October 14, 2009 @ 12:38 pm

This sucks. I was wondering what happened to the advanced search options, such as by school or city or occupation. They need to bring it back. Facebook?! Are you listening?!

Comment by jjhelga — November 2, 2009 @ 5:16 am

FORGIVE THE CAPS, BUT I WANTED TO CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS POST:

When searching for someone by Name and Location, use the following format in the search field (box):

NAME;LOCATION

Comment by Nameless — November 27, 2009 @ 10:05 am

I used AS mostly to ID phone numbers so that I wouldn't have to send that embarrassing "who are you?" text when I received a text message from someone whose number didn't pop up on my phone (either because of deliberate deletion or unintentional loss). Eep.

Comment by Facebook User — November 27, 2009 @ 10:26 am

The removal of Advanced Search (as well as Courses) really bothered me as well. I got acquainted with a number of people that way. Now I can't even see which of my Friends share things in common without looking at each of their pages!

It's odd that text in the Political Views, Religious Views, Activities, Interests, etc. continue to be linked. It returns just Groups, Pages, Posts by Friends, and Web Results now, which can be done by typing in the Search window anyway.

Are there applications which genuinely permit such searches?

Comment by Chris — December 7, 2009 @ 10:24 pm

Why China Blocked " facebook" i dont get it….hellooooo anyone out there know how can i get connected to facebook from this country plz??

Comment by ms belle — December 22, 2009 @ 4:08 pm

Really frustrating….Really hard to search for friends in different networks, especially if they have generic names…I also really liked being able to see who liked some of the same music artists as me…. Why would you not at least be able to get results for people on your friend list that have things in common with you? This was one of my favorite features. I really don’t understand why they would remove these features- less isn’t more in this situation.

Comment by Jimmy — January 4, 2010 @ 11:26 pm

I USED IT all the freaking time! SO FRUSTRATED!!!

Comment by emilie — January 8, 2010 @ 9:22 am

in order to contact chinese people from china, i suggest u can use http://www.renren.com/ instead. it's similar to facebook,

Comment by Vicky Bicky — January 9, 2010 @ 7:32 pm

Facebook like many other sites is trying to make sure people can not get around conveniently. Why have someone find what they want in 20 seconds when you can force them to search for ours through adding hundreds of friends and plunking away on they're PC's forever to find what they are looking for.

that way they can maximize they're profits. Any social website that allows advanced search quickly becomes a "dating website" and the same old story unfolds, very quickly a small number of women/men monopolize all the attention and people get tired & lonely from being ignored or pouring all they're effort and receiving nothing in return. This will happen eventually but social networks just try to slow the process so they can make the most money.

Online communities are the epitome of matriarchy

Comment by Aaron — March 20, 2010 @ 3:27 pm

I just tried doing a search for someone I know lives in California, but there are too many options for California. It won't allow me to search through the entire state like I can with some other states. I'm pretty sure California is not the only state that has too many things with the same name. It's really a hassle because I can't find my friend without going through several pages, and that's assuming she even used her real name (or haven't change it)

Comment by chris — March 30, 2010 @ 9:34 am

I always thought that change should be for the better – someone please pass that on to FB!!!!

Comment by Allen — April 21, 2010 @ 12:24 pm

That sucks!

Comment by T — July 5, 2010 @ 12:32 am

[...] Facebook killed their advanced search functionality last year, a minor uprising ensued just as happened before with many changes to the [...]

Pingback by Facebook Currently Testing Profile Search Without Filters — September 14, 2010 @ 10:09 am

yeah, this is really stupid. I can't honestly believe that Facebook has gotten away with this. Not being able to find friends (I'm not even talking about strangers, but people who have AGREED to be connected with you on facebook) who are in a geographical area to which you're travelling, or friends who like a certain band when you want to get a group together to see them when they're in town. How can they really call themselves a social networking site? Going through all my friends' individual pages to get this info isn't worth the time. Any word about a decent app which would restore this functionality?

Comment by Isabel — September 14, 2010 @ 10:24 am

I know this went away a long time ago, when Facebook basically added that new RSS feed to the site. Its really lame and if they took it away because of lawsuits and what not give me a break. AOL had this feature since 93' till its day of death probably around 05'. It was called (Member Directory) being able to search people by common interests such as schools, music, location, age, etc..

Comment by topher — January 10, 2011 @ 10:50 pm

koj puas tseem nyob zooo

Comment by lee — October 7, 2011 @ 5:06 pm

Welcome New Reader!

Facebook Advanced Search Is Officially Gone For Good

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Welcome New Reader!

Facebook Advanced Search Is Officially Gone For Good

Recommended Articles

Inside Social Apps 2012 is Less Than Two Weeks Away

751932 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.allfacebook.com%2Ffacebook-advanced-search-is-officially-gone-for-good-2009-09Facebook+Advanced+Search+Is+Officially+Gone+For+Good2009-09-07+13%3A41%3A14Nick+O%27Neillhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.allfacebook.com%2F%3Fp%3D7519 »

Leave a comment

Follow AllFacebook

Send us a Tip

Social Media Jobs

Let your next job find you!

Featured Company

Jobs of the Day

Digital Strategist

Digital/Social Media Manager - Entertainment

Social Media Coordinator

See all jobs

Upcoming Events

751932 Comments2009-09-07+13%3A41%3A14Nick+O%27Neill »