Earlier this week, Facebook held it’s annual F8 developers conference. During the conference keynote speech, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and developer Bret Taylor announced three new types of plugins, which may have some impact on search engine optimization (SEO), speculates SearchEngineLand.com.

The first plugins announced were a series of social plugins that can be integrated into a website. The social plugins include a Like button, as well as Activity and Recommendation feeds. By clicking the Like button, a user will announce to their Facebook friends that they like a certain business or website, much how the Like button currently works within Facebook. The Activity feed and Recommendation feeds will be similarly integrated into websites, and will show what a user’s friends have done or recommended on a certain website.

Open Graph and Graph API, the other two announcements made during the keynote speech, are tools for developers. The tools will allow businesses to more easily integrate Facebook features into their websites. Open Graph will also store a user’s personal data, which may allow developers to fine-tune their websites in response to what users like or dislike.

SearchEngineLand.com speculates that the new Like button could potentially affect search engine optimization (SEO). Like data could easily be integrated into a search engine’s search algorithmic, which may filter sites depending on how many Likes they have.

Facebook currently serves more than 400 million users worldwide, and is growing on a daily basis. A study from iStrategy Labs indicates that the number of Facebook users in the U.S. doubled in 2009, and is expected to grow even more in 2010.

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.