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Eight months after unveiling Graph Search, its new internal search capability, Facebook announced Wednesday that all users in the U.S. now have access to the feature.
You can use Graph Search to find "People from my hometown," "Photos I have liked" or "Hotels in Seattle visited by my friends," for example. Facebook will search your profile, your friends' profiles and public information from strangers' profiles for results. Graph Search does not give you access to information you otherwise wouldn't have, such as a photo album a friend has marked private. It only makes it easier to find information you already have access to.
Because the information others can find about you depends on how strict or lenient your privacy settings are, it's important to revisit them now. Here are three important profile sections to revisit.
1. Review Your "About" Profile Section.
Most of your personal information -- such as your current location, birthday, relationship status and political beliefs -- is found in your "About" profile section. If you only want your friends to have access to this information, be sure your privacy settings are set to "Friends." If there is information you don't mind making public, such as your job title and employer, check to see that these are set to "Public."
[ Is your News Feed cluttered? Read 5 Ways To Customize Facebook News Feed. ]
To edit your profile information, click the About tab below your cover photo and comb through each of the sections: work and education, living, relationship, basic information, family, contact information, pages, about you and favorite quotations.
To change the privacy settings of any of these subheads, click the "Edit" button next to it. You can choose to make each piece of information either public; for friends only; friends except acquaintances; only me (private); or custom, in which you can denote specific people you do or do not want to grant access to. You can also allow or prevent access to certain friend lists.
2. Check Your Photos' Privacy.
Facebook users are most sensitive about the privacy of their photos. Because Graph Search makes it easier for others to surface old pictures, it's important to revisit the privacy settings of photos you're tagged in as well as albums you have published.
To review photos you have shared or have been tagged in, visit your Activity Log. You'll find this next to the "Update Info" button below your cover photo. Your Activity Log displays all your actions on Facebook, from Pages you've liked to comments you've made.
To narrow down the information you see, click the Photos tab on the left-side navigation and select "Photos of You." Combing through the photos can be painstaking depending on how many you have been tagged in. Click the drop-down menu to the right of each picture to change the privacy setting if necessary.
Photos you have hidden from your timeline are still searchable. To review these photos, click the drop-down menu next to "On timeline" at the top to switch to a hidden-only view.
Finally, check the privacy settings of your individual albums. Do this by going to your Albums page and clicking the icon that appears below each of your albums to check the setting. Some albums, such as your profile pictures and mobile uploads, might not let you change the privacy setting for the entire album. For these, you need to review and change the setting of each picture individually.
3. Review Your "Places" Privacy Settings.
Location check-ins, such as at a restaurant or museum, or photos tagged with a location, also will appear in Graph Searches.
To review your tag history, view your Activity Log and sort it by "Posts you're tagged in." This filter will also display photo tags. To delete a tag or change a location, click the pencil icon. One thing to be wary of: If you added a location tag to a photo, the photo's privacy setting is the same as your location's privacy setting. You can't separate the two.
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