With over 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. While many enjoy connecting with friends and family on Facebook, others prefer to keep their profile more private for personal or professional reasons. If you fall into the latter category, you may be wondering if it’s possible to hide or remove your Facebook account from public search results and user searches on the platform itself.
Is My Facebook Profile Public by Default?
When you first create a Facebook account, your profile and posts default to being public. This allows anyone to search for and view your profile on Facebook, even if they are not your friend or follower. Some key points about default public profiles:
- Your profile photo, cover photo, and featured photos are visible to everyone.
- Your friends list is visible to everyone.
- Your posts, unless specifically limited, are visible to the public.
- You can show up in public search engines like Google and on Facebook’s search feature.
So in the default public setting, any random person can find and access your profile information and posts simply by searching your name on Facebook or Google.
How to Hide Your Facebook Profile From Search
If you want to limit access to your Facebook profile, there are a few options:
Make Your Profile Private
You can change your profile visibility settings to private by following these steps:
- Click on the arrow in the top right corner and select “Settings”.
- Click on “Privacy” in the left sidebar.
- Under “How people can find and contact you”, click on “Edit” next to “Who can see your future posts?”.
- Change the setting from “Public” to “Friends” or a more restrictive option.
- Click “Review all your privacy settings” at the bottom and go through each section to customize exactly who can see what.
Making your profile fully private means only your friends can see your posts and information. Your profile will no longer show up in public Facebook searches.
Adjust Search Engine Visibility
Even if your profile is private, it can still show up in outside search engines like Google and Bing. To prevent this:
- Go to “Settings” then click “Privacy”.
- Under “How people can find and contact you”, click “Edit” next to “Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?”.
- Select “No”.
This will remove your profile from being indexed on public search engines.
Block Search Engines in Facebook’s Settings
You can also tell Facebook not to allow search engines to index any of your profiles or posts:
- Go to “Settings” and click “Privacy”.
- Under “How people can find and contact you”, click on “Edit” next to “Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your timeline?”.
- Select “No”.
Use a Pseudonym
If you don’t want your real identity easily searchable, you can create a Facebook account under a pseudonym or fake name. Just be aware this violates Facebook’s policies and your account could get banned if discovered.
Does Deactivating Your Facebook Remove it From Search?
No, deactivating your Facebook account does not remove it from search results. Your profile will still show up in searches, there just won’t be any content visible when people click on it.
To completely remove your deactivated profile from search, you need to delete your Facebook account. See instructions below.
How to Permanently Delete Your Facebook Account
Deleting your Facebook account completely removes your profile and info from search results across the platform and external search engines. Here’s how to delete your Facebook account:
- Click on the arrow in the top right and select “Settings & Privacy”.
- Click on “Settings”.
- Click “Your Facebook Information” in the left column.
- Click “Deactivation and Deletion”.
- Choose “Permanently Delete Account” and click “Continue to Account Deletion”.
- Enter your password and click “Permanently Delete Account”.
Once your account is deleted, all your information and posts will be removed from Facebook permanently within 90 days.
Important Things to Know Before Deleting Facebook
Before deleting your Facebook account completely, be aware of a few important things:
- You have a limited window to reverse the deletion if you change your mind. After 30 days, deletion is permanent.
- Content you’ve shared with others like photos may still be visible if you were tagged.
- Facebook Messenger will no longer work, so download any messages or data you want to keep.
- You’ll lose access to any apps or sites you used Facebook to login to.
- Deleting Facebook does not delete subsidiary accounts like Instagram or WhatsApp.
Other Ways to Limit Your Visibility on Facebook
If you don’t want to delete Facebook entirely but still want more privacy, some other options include:
- Remove your profile and cover photos
- Delete your posts and photos in bulk
- Remove your workplace and education information
- Block search engines from indexing your profile
- Change privacy settings to friends/family only
- Disable location tagging and face recognition
- Remove yourself from Suggested Friends and People You May Know
- Block bots and apps from seeing your info
Conclusion
While Facebook is designed to make profiles public by default, there are steps you can take to remove your account from search results if you desire more privacy:
- Make your profile fully private
- Block search engine indexing
- Use a pseudonym
- Permanently delete your account
Just be aware that deleting Facebook is permanent, so download anything you want to keep first. And you can limit visibility without fully deleting your profile too. Carefully adjusting your privacy settings and removing personal details can help you control what the public can access about you on Facebook.