How does Facebook determine which Friends appear on your Facebook Profile sidebar?

On your own profile page, it appears to be partly random, but I think a large factor is who you interact with (and your friends interaction with you) in terms of wall posts, comments, likes, photo tags that include you (or your photo tags that include them), etc. and also profile views.   I would guess that wall posts, comments and photo tags play the largest roll in determining your friends sidebar.

It may also show friends whom profiles and/or pictures you view more often (or they view your profile), although this would only be one factor in the algorithm.

There's a possibility that it may also take into account and show friends who have more friends in common between you and other friends (although I doubt this is a huge factor).

Facebook will cache your friends sidebar, so if you refresh the page you may see the same friends (possibly in a different order).

Keep in mind, the exact algorithm that Facebooks uses to determine your friends sidebar is not known publicly, so this is just a best guess.

If you go on one of your friend's profile page, they tend to put friends that are closest to you in terms of friends of friends, network or mutual friends so you are more likely to know them.

It's got to be which pages you view most. I have no interaction with my boyfriend's profile, nor he with mine, but I look at his the most. He almost always appears on my sidebar.

im pretty its who views your profile most, not whos you visited most

I think it is an indication of who views your profile. I recently reached out to an out-of-touch friend who appeared on my profile's sidebar, and he said it was uncanny I reached out to him because he had just been looking at my profile after I popped up on his newsfeed. It's pretty revealing to see it that way!

Conversely, there are folks' whose profile I look at daily and I never pop up in their sidebar. So I think it's likely based more on interaction (as some of these individuals also rarely appear on my sidebar).

Well most of the things i have read say that its completely random, but i like to pretend that its my top stalkers(;

It certainly is not totally random. Its the same 20 people for me ( I have 130 friends.)
I think its a combination of the people with whom you have most interaction and who is online at the time. But I also think facebook throws 2 random folks into the mix to make it appear random. ... Facebook will never let you know who has been secretly visiting your profile. If that got out, people would stop stalking and facebook would lose money.

I believe some of it is based on who views your profile often, whilst others are put in there by random. You can tell by the consistency of their picture and name being shown on your bar. If it is there the majority of the time, then it is most likely because they look at your profile quite frequently. Others are most likely just random.

Ok..Ok.. it is most definitely who views YOUR profile the most!!! I know this because the same 3-4 guys that ALWAYS appear on my profile, constantly text wanting to get together! I'm sure FB also throws a couple randoms in as well so most people can't tell. When they bug you by phone, they are for sure stalking you on FB! Think about it! :)

i do beilive its who views your page the most! or at least thats what i pretend it is :D because one of my ex boyfriends is ALWAYS on there and im pretty 100 percent sure he wants to get back together with me :) or just stalk me you know....hahhaha

i dont think it is who you interact with the most, because i haven't talked to him or interacted with him on there in like a month. so yeah.

I also think it is who views your page the most because I don't go to anyone's page but the same people keep showing up on the bar. Kind of spooky but I don't think that we will ever know.

I actually reckon what it shows on your personal wall is based both on people you interract with AND those you view more (hence the stalker coincidences), BUT when you view someone elses page its based purely on their public interraction, maybe mixing short and long-term so thats why both very new and old friends pop up.

I'm sure it's all based on loads of variables, but I definitely don't think they'd give away anything about what pages other people have viewed; the Facebook lot have made a point that they will never do so, so I doubt they'd subtly divulge that info through the side bar...

I actually searched the FB help center a few weeks ago to find out once and for all who is chosen for the sidebar, and the official answer is that it's mostly who you often interact with PUBLICLY, and also a few people chosen at random. So, if you often write on a friend's wall or they write on yours, often "like", comment, or are tagged in someone's links/photos, attend the same events, or exchange any public actions that others can already see (actions that aren't hidden by your privacy settings), it will show those people on your sidebar. But it DOES NOT have anything to do with viewing profiles, FB chat, or private messages that are sent or received. This is good, since even though we're all curious about who's been checkin us out or which friends from five years ago are still interested in what we're doing, none of us want our own viewing history to be revealed to anyone...lol :) It keeps everyone from being embarrassed; the friends you publicly interact with the most are probably some of your closer friends anyway (or at least the more interesting ones), and if everyone could see who was viewing their profiles, we'd probably all be less likely to check out our friends' (or crush's) new statuses or pictures! That would be bad for Facebook, they'd totally lose business by revealing any information that would make people less likely to use their features. So ladies, stop planning your weddings around the cute boys who keep showing up on your sidebar! Facebook isn't telling you any secrets, or anything you don't already know, period.

::speculation:: I do wonder, however, if FB sometimes throws in a person you haven't interacted with in a long time (showing up on your sidebar or in your NewsFeed), and also decides to show your updates on their NewsFeed or your name on their sidebar for a while, just to see if you might remember to check out their pages and reconnect. It would make sense that it might also do this with people you had "featured" on your profile in the past, but no longer (i.e. old boyfriends, best friends, etc.). I don't know about that, though, it's just an idea.

If you don't like the selection of friends who are currently showing up on your sidebar, you unfortunately can't change that one. What you can do, however, is click on the pencil at the top right of the sidebar and create groups to put special friends in (like a group of friends from your job, school, trip, best friends, etc). The featured groups that you create will appear above the default friends sidebar, and move the one you can't change farther down the page.

Quick? Are you on the sidebars of anyone at the same time as they are on yours? I noticed lately I am not. I also noticed one girl whose profile I used to visit a lot was always on mine and I was never on hers.. and now I don't visit as often and she is never on mine but I am always on hers.. Coincidence? Idk what it means but I doubt it.

Quoting facebook here,
By default, a changing selection of friends always appears under the "Friends" heading in the left column of your profile. The selection includes many friends who you publicly interact with the most. Examples of public interactions include Wall posts, comments and mutually attended events — Facebook will never show friends based on whose profiles you choose to view or who you interact with over messages and chat.

I know what facebook says about it. It has said that ever since they started putting friends on the sidebar. I have also noticed that it appears to have changed over the last couple of weeks. Facebook can state one thing in their FAQs from years ago then change the algorithm. I'm going to pick someone random out of my friends and view their profile a lot to see what happens. I'm going to watch both my sidebar friends and theirs.

Its not most viewed cause the most view person, other than my relationship and family list, has never been on there...most of them i never chat with, never do wall posts with, never get tagged in pics with...etc......

it seems to me that it is who ever viewed your profile most recently. its not gonna show you YOU in a friends sidebar, because you are YOU. to see yourself, you'd have to log into FB from a 3rd party profile and visit to see...

I think its partly who YOU view the most, and who you interact with likes, comments, visits your page etc.

because i really doubt that a friend that appears 90% of the time in my sidebar its viewing my facebook, considering he past away around 2 months ago.

i think it is the people who view your profile the most. I think your the only one who can see the side bar that you are seeing i think if friends look at your profile, it shows different so they want no who views yours the most...so they will want suspect nothing and can feel like a ninja stalker:)

What you've said in your original article is definately true. Of my 15 or so friends that always pop up in my friends list on my profile, there are a few that I never publicly or privately interact with on facebook, we are not tagged in any of the same photos, we don't message or write on walls etc, and I don't look on their facebook pages. However I know they are frequently checking my facebook page because they always pop up in my friends list. There may well be other factors that are used to calculate who shows up in that list (e.g. public interaction, commenting on photos etc) but whether or not THEY look at YOUR page (and not the other way round) seems to be quite a big factor also. It's weird that Facebook have not officially annouced or confirmed this... I'm absolutely certain it's the case though. I do not get on with my bf's family, I don't check their fb pages ever, I don't email them or look at their photos coz i have no interest to see what they are doing etc. However, if I put up a new album from a night out or holiday, they all start appearing in my friends list. The only explanation is that they are all having a good snoop at my page and my photos.

Well i have a fair bit of friends around 500 and i always see the same probably 15 or 20 people some i talk too quite a bit in chat but never publicly and we havent been tagged in the same pics and some i never chat or look at there profiles yet they continually are showing up on my friends bar i just wish i knew why they were there

I must say that at some level, I've also always suspected that profile views had something to do with it. I noticed that I also see myself on certain people's side bars as well - mainly the people I interact with or people who's pages I view often with the intent to say something on their page before I get distracted and leave without ever saying anything. Out of all 700+ friends, I get pretty much the same few people in my side bar all the time. A few of them I don't even talk to much, but... I know for sure that I "give them" plenty reason to frequently view my page with all the wacky things and promotions I do. I used to get all females, until recently, this male dj who plays music similar to what I play started showing up there ever since I started promoting his station some time ago and he started checking out the music I posted on my page. The only thing, though, is there are other guys who are bigger fans of everything I do and even interact more often with my posts, yet they NEVER show up. I wonder if privacy settings have anything to do with who can be seen or not?

Really, when I actually think about it, I have no idea in reality why the people who show up there, do. When you factor in all the possibilities and circumstances, it only leads to more possibilities and questions to why it happens. Most of the "wishful thinking" presented here as facts are possibly pure myths. Maybe it's designed to 'almost' look a certain way just to keep you intrigued, wondering, and wanting to think about and interact with certain people. I'm sure part of facebook's crew are people who specialize in psychology and know what works when it comes to subconsciously keeping people's interest. One thing I know for sure is that the sidebar is not 100% random because there are tons of people who never (or have yet to) show up there. I'll experiment with talking to / interacting with nothing but new people for an entire week and see if anything changes.

I also suspect it is who visits YOUR profile being a large factor, although facebook will thro in a few random friends. I have 1300+ friends and an ex of mine keeps showing up on my sidebar along with some of the more familiar people I routinely communicate with. I have not talked to my ex or viewed her profile for over 2 weeks, yet she is always there, I can refresh over and over, but she is still there, just in different order. I know she is viewing being that other friends have told me she had been asking about what I meant by some statuses I would post. Out of curiousity, I had just went to her profile to see if I was on her sidebar but nope...not there. A couple of the friends on the list may be random, and some may be based on interactions, but the rest Im pretty sure have something to do with them viewing your pro.

I have put up a survey to try and find out which friends are put on the sidebar on your profile page.
It would be really great if you could take it; it would really help.

link to survey:
http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22CRQZ4LFKD

link to results:
http://www.zoomerang.com/Shared/SharedResultsSurve...

For a while now I have believed that who shows up in MY sidebar are the people that I view most. For example, my boyfriend broke up with me a few months ago and I have to admit, I still look at his profile and I'm assuming he doesn't look at mine anymore. We never actually communicated very much on facebook. But he always shows up on my sidebar and I never show up on his. So I guess what I'm asking is if I view his profile alot and never show up on his sidebar, but he always shows up on mine, wouldn't it make more sense if my friends list showed whose profile I was viewing rather than who was viewing my profile?
Hope you were able to follow that

it has nothing to do with who views your page the most!! these people are chosen randomly!

i think it's your stalkers. some of the people that are coming up make sense (ie. they just wrote on my wall), but some i've never written on the wall of (and vise versa). i just refreshed and the exact same group of 10 came up, but in a different order.

https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=199139933467308

I think it's people who have viewed your profile most recently, as the others said I haven't talked to some of the people but they're there in my friends bar. Then I later find out when I see them that they've been looking at my profile.
For example a friend of mine looked at my profile yesterday and as soon as she did she appeared in the side bar..... I know what facebook says is "official" but I think that they wouldn't tell everyone the reeeaal reason, because that way you know who's been looking at your profile and you're sure about it. Whilst this way you think it's some complex algorithm...when it's probably not.

One of the people routinely on this list is a deceased friend of mine, so I'm pretty sure it isn't about who checks your profile out the most. Hard to do that from Heaven...

It isn't who always veiws your account. I made another accoount for me and it always appears on my sidebar thing. and I never go on it nor do I ever look at the profile. How can i go on it. I forgot the password. I think it is partailly random and partailly not. or shows the least people who veiw your account and the most.

My former neighbor appears in my sidebar AND on my profile page on a regular basis. I do not interact with him at all on Facebook - if I want to contact him I call or text him. We have very few friends and events in common as well.

Does this mean he's checking my profile out on a regular basis?

just thought i'd add something here... some of the people who's profile i view most, it's because they post like crazy and i don't want to see it in the recent posts feed all the time. so block their posts in the feed but i might go to their profile more than others. it doesn't mean i'm more interested in them, in fact sometimes the opposite. just something to think about.

Okay, after experimenting with a few profiles, here's my results:

1) Most of the people that appear on the left are those you INTERACT with.
2) The remainder (maybe 20%?) are people chosen randomly from your friends list.

Facebook caches the list of friends on the left-hand side during every session, which is why if you push refresh on your browser, the same names will always appear. To create a new list of names, you need to logout, login to another account, logout, and login to your original account. You'll see new random names, plus the names of people you always interact with.

Haven't spoken to or interacted with my ex on facebook for 6 months, literally haven't viewed her profile ONCE, she constantly shows up. I have a feeling some of the people in there are people you USED to interact with, and they're coming up as suggestions to "reconnect" with, either as a result of them viewing your profile or just completely randomly. The people i interact with most barely show up, but sometimes do.

Just to throw it out there, but what about people who have disabled the ability for people to write on their wall? For example, there is a classmate of mine who has disabled this feature, and when school ended one of our classmates (who has a huge crush on him) appears on his top friends list every couple of days. I am assuming she is stalking his page because it is virtually impossible to publicly interact with him, unless he is posting on her wall (which I highly doubt) But long story short I believe it is it largely who views someone's profile recently

My ex and I broke up over 5 months ago, we had very little interactions over facebook at all, seeing as he rarely went on facebook. There are a few pictures of us from when we went to a dance together, maybe about 10, but that's really the only interaction we had with each other over Facebook. Yet around the same time period, I was really good friends with this one girl that I am no longer friends with. I am always in my ex's sidebar, and he's always in mine. My old friend, however, is never in my sidebar. I'll look at my ex's profile, maybe once every blue moon, but not all that often. Plus we have both moved on, there are certainly more pictures of me with other people and I had greater interaction with other people, but they don't show up in my sidebar as often as he does. Sometimes I wonder if he checks up on me sometimes, and it kind of creeps me out.

Yet there's this kid that has been writing on my wall and messaging me every night and he has never appeared in my sidebar once.

And there's a girl that always explains what she saw on my wall that always appears in my sidebar, when I never look at her profile.

Personally, I feel that the people that look at your profile the most are the ones in the "friend" sidebar. I don't know. Interaction might factor in there somewhere, but I have no idea. Just my personal opinion:)

however its decided, regardless, the developer should have his legs broken. it hides online friends to show friends who are not only offline but ones who ive never interacted with profiles or talked to on fb chat, its just crap

I don't know if it can really be who looks at your profile the most... I have three friends with dead facebook accounts (lost the password or can't log in for some other reason), and they still show up on my sidebar, even though they haven't logged in for like 2 years.

http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=116320945119338&...

"Which friends appear in the left column of my profile?

I'm really can not believe this is a random selection yet i can not seem to find a logical explanation either. I have had the same list of friends in my sidebar for weeks, it rarely changes bar 2 names now and again (of people who has recently publicly interacted with me or visa versa). I have people who i KNOW check my profile a lot and never appear on the list. I have FB friends who i interact with daily who have never featured either.

What i find really odd is the people on the list are all people who i would consider true, or old friends (even a couple that are family members) that i have actually met and spent personal time with and not just friends that i have made on FB. Strangely i dont connect much with these people on FB at all. I have many mutual friends and/or photographs with the people on the list but i also do with many many others who are not. I live over 6000miles away from home so location has nothing to do with it. I have 800 friends and not a single random person who i dont really know (networking contact) has ever been on the list, even though i know there are some stalkers.

I have tried logging in and out and resetting cache on my computer. I have another account which i have tried stalking myself with and that doesnt appear in my list. My list rarely changes.

Today i have a new friend on the list who is an old friend of mine, but we havent caught up in ages. however, i liked a status of theirs yesterday. but I liked many yesterday. Another friend left the list yet we have been publicly connecting more than usual over the last couple of days!!

Another point, i rarely check peoples profiles, i check the newsfeed instead. Yet i often check on my BF profile as he is in another country at the moment. We keep in touch via FB. I am rarely on his list and I definitely stalk him!!! unless my definition of stalking is not accurate, which is scary to say the least LOL!

i am totally baffled and frustrated, i can't work this one out! I am going to keep experimenting with my alias account and see if i can get on my list!! I am dying to know if these people are 'stalkers' or not. It would be really interesting (and nice in some cases) if they were!

As a last minute exercise for this post, i took the people on the list and tried to find a common theme based on the new fb 'see friendship' tool:

1. Friends since 2009. Have worked together, 0 photos, 2 posts on their wall in the last 1 yr, rare interaction. 15 mutual friends, however only has 49 in total and does like to keep up to date with the people they know but not 'use' FB.

2. Friends since 2009. Used to connect a lot on FB a couple of years back, now occasional likes and comments. 38 photos together. 25 mutual friends. Would definitely say this person checks my profile to keep up to date.

3. Friends since 2009. Same as above, we were three together (note number 2 and 3 have just come in to my list the last two days, since some comments and messaging). rarely we fb now. 40 photos, 37 mutual friends.

4. Friends since 2009 (popular year!). 0 photos, rare comments, 38 mutual friends. But 'likes' me!!!!

5. Friends since 2011, 26 mutual friends., 0 photos. occasional likes and comments. is a keen fb user and suspect keeps up with everyone. We work in the same industry.

6. Friends since 2007 (family), 20 mutual friends, 0 photos, rare connection at all. (however i know this family member follows me as we speak about it but they dont seem to be on fb much!)

7. Friends since 2008 (again family), 29 mutual friends, 5 photos (however no 7 has tagged me in many of theirs). A lot of recent interactions, i would be surprised if no 7 was not watching my profile.

8. Friends since july 2011 (another family member), 8 mutual friends, tagged photos are hidden, 0 interactions (This person is on FB a lot it seems, however does not interact much and keeps private, probably checks my profile)

9. Friends since 2011, but originally from 2009, we lost friendship and had to reconnect!! 238 mutual friends, 47 photos. 100% is on my profile a lot, however has only been a recent addition to the list this week!!

10. Friends since 2008, 8 mutual friends. rare connection if AT ALL on FB, but a close friend in reality. Again not in to interacting on fb, just keeping up.

So it makes sense that these people are on my list, i know them well and not surprised they would be keeping up with me especially as i'm far away.

Similarities:

Location:

2 of 10 are based in the same country as I and in close proximity - both use fb a lot.
5/10 are based in my home country, though not in the same town or city
The remaining 2/10 are in different countries and are people who i used to have a lot of FB connection but now not so much. We have similar friends and many photos.
1/10 is in a total different continent to everyone, however is family.

We all share familiar 'true' friends, and these friends i also interact with or have family/work/previous location links. This last point has me thinking, maybe quality of mutual friends plays a part. Only no 4 doesnt have 'quality' friends. (true stalker???)

btw - i do not have anyone listed as Family or 'in a relationship with' or visa versa.

Any other thoughts?

I think its a mixture of random people, people who view your profile, people you interact with and the people you view often. In the list of friends on the sidebar 4 I have interacted with frequently, 2 people I posted something on their wall or liked their pictures and then I have 2 random people I never talk to but that leaves two people who I know frequently view my page. How do I know? Because they told me....A guy just said to me that he reads my status-updates and looks at my photos.....

There is a friend that I rarely interact with on FB, only thru e-mails and the persons picture is always on my side bar, I love the picture so that is great. Maybe this person visits my profile a lot I don't know.

I'm assuming its based on how many times they view your profile. I have about 1500 friends. My boyfriend's ex who I went to high school with and don't talk to, in messages or on her page, quite consistently shows up in my side bar. As does a girl I went to college with several years ago who I knew for a short time and did not have much interaction with. Only a few are friends I used speak to frequently, but not much facebook interaction, yet have talked to in months. There are many people I interact more with and who I have more mutual friends with, yet the ones who show up are not people I talk to as much.

But the question is WHY would fb show who has been stalking u? It makes no sense of them to divulge such information to u. A randomly generated list is so much easier.

An interesting thing is that when I am viewing my own profile, I see one set of friends regularly. However, when I "View As" someone else (like a guy friend who has a big crush on me) an entirely different set of my friends are displayed. When I view my own profile, I see this guy's picture all the time, but I also just see people who are friends of mine, who would have been looking at my profile (like my best friend, my family, etc.) But when I "View As" this guy friend, a bunch of my better-looking guy friends come up, as well as friends he and I have in common.

Interesting.

Well, I stumbled upon this because I really like this guy and he kept jumping from the "more online friends" section to the "top online friends" section. I really wanted to know what the difference was, and how it was determined! So, after reading a few theories and sorting through my list of top online/offline friends (because sometimes they're offline...) I came up with this:

It is definitely the people who you interact with most. The people whose profiles you have visited most recently will appear there as well. Also, it has to do with who you talk to in the chat. HOWEVER, I also think that it has to do with viewing your page- for example, I seldom go to my mom's page, but she's always in there when she's online!

Though I do believe that it has to do with who is viewing your page, I do not think this is a major factor. Indeed, there are some people in the list who only talk to me on chat sometimes and whose pages I seldom visit and who I doubt visit my page. It's a tricky situation, and some are random, but I think it mainly has to do with whose page YOU are viewing, not how much interaction goes on between you two. The people in my top online friends are the people whose profiles i visit frequently to check out pictures.

I still don't know about the jumping from "more online friends" to "top online friends" thing, but i like to think that it's him viewing my page too ;)

Well, it can't be who you look at the most, as many of the profiles that I view the most are not on my sidebar, and the ones that are, I rarely look at. .....

I have always kept my list to a mininum of 100 "selective" friends, which make things easier to keep track of. As for the sidebar, I've been noticing this for a while that same people show up on my friends list, in random.
This is normal, HOWEVER every once in a while there is a new face that appears on your list... this signifies that the person has visited your page.
How is that so? Well, I happened to be avoiding this person for weeks after a dispute we had over a post on FB, and since then I've been too careful not to view her profile for fear that there might be some special app going on (e.g. profile tracker). And so I completely avoided her, that which includes not clicking photos or any updates that shows up on the Newsfeed. But whenever her face shows up on my sidebar in a blue moon, that's when I know she's checking my page, without a single doubt.

idk i want to know bc all the the same axact ppl in a diff order have been on my profile all day! and of all of them only one guy, but i dont go on fb that much just today i was on a lot.... i reloaded the page back to back and sometimes no change in order

this is really bugging me. my ex bf and one of my best friends keep showing up on each others' sidebars. she always used to tell me that he was no good etc so i don't know if she would be looking at his because she likes him or if she finds his strange behaviour worth a look, but he is on hers. if it's just people that look at yours then why is he on hers too? and it's almost every week even when they both get a new batch. i want to ask her about it but at the same time i don't want to give her ideas that he might be looking at hers. they have never had any public interaction. all of the other people on hers make sense. another thing though, i look at his profile probably more than anyone else but don't always show up so maybe it's who views longest?

i have a huge interest for one person from my friend list, and sometimes i notice my own face in his list on the left, though he has about 2000 friends on FB, and we don't interract (likes, comments, chat, etc)
i turned my attantion on it, because there are always the same faces there, obviously his close friends, and somewhy i started apperaring there.

my own list is closed, only i can see it. and he also appears in my list.
well, i could explain with me stalking him quite often, so he's in my top. but then i can't explain me showin up at his'.

i also noticed, that i swow up at those friends' lists, who watch my profile for sure, even if we don't interact much.

btw, how do you think, do others see this list the way it's owner sees it, or they may see absolutely different people there ?

"The friends that show up at the top of your sidebar are people you’ve interacted with frequently or recently on Facebook. This part updates dynamically." From the facebook website. ^___^

Ok i'm not sure how they are found, but i'm pretty sure it can't be random because i just refreshed my Facebook page 6 times then logged out, waited and logged back in and the SAME people were there the whole time, only 2 oh whom i actually talk to or interact with. Weirdd

its who visits your page the most

I got a question for you peeps…..


Has anyone hovered their mouse over there username on a post of there’s or done a group invite and invited all their friends?

As I get the same rotation of 10-12 people in the five spots all the time when I do these two things in the list of people. However, it is mostly different people than my profile sidebar.

It might be the people I am stalking, but I can never be sure.

Also, when I hover my mouse over one of my friends it gives mainly all the people that we have in common randomly in fives. I am pretty sure its ALL the people in common.

Any Theories?

P.S. Also this same list of friends appear when I hover my mouse over my profile picture in any and all posts that I make.

So I read what Facebook has to say about it, but why is this girl always on mine if we've almost never talked on Facebook and rarely attend a Facebook event together? The weird part is that I've been thinking about asking her out.

It's the people who visited your profile or is stalking you hard ;)

I think it is largely who views your profile because there is a girl who likes me but we never talk on facebook or are tagged in any pictures together nor does she comment or like any of my posts yet she always shows up on my sidebar. I view her profile a lot too but I don't think it is based on who's profile you view because there is another girl who comments and likes a bunch of my posts but I don't even know who she is. I have literally never viewed her profile yet she appears on my side bar as well. Then I noticed that it is also not about who you are posted or tagged in pictures with because none of the people I have recently been tagged in pictures with show up on my sidebar. I also just became facebook friends with this girl the other day that I had been talking to for a while on an online forum and she shows up on my sidebar too.

I think it is a mix of who's online that you commonly interact with and then who views your profile the most. The people who show up on your sidebar when they're not online are probably people who view your profile a lot. And also who has viewed it recently.

it's most definitely not someone you interact with the most (like wallposts, likes, comments, etc.) i interact with my 3 best friends the most and literally NONE of them appear on my sidebar! haha, like people are saying, it might be someone that views your profile the most / vice versa. i'm always looking at my crush's wall & he always the only person that appears on the sidebar. & i have over 700 friends. hahaha. people are saying that he likes me back so he could possibly be stalking me too (; i think that it's people that you view the most & people that stalk your wall!

Hello all,
I have been wondering if this new profile features have also something to do with the way (and the algorithms used) to display the top list of friends on the chat sidebar. It seems they behave kind of similarly... and as I was doing my own research, I ran into one of the FB developers... commenting as follows:
<quote> Over the last year, the messages team has been working to make it easier to have one on one conversations with your friends. In November, we launched the new messages, which brings together your chats, texts, emails and messages all in one place.<end quote> Source: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150223135..., Phillip Su, gone on record on July 6th 2011. It clearly indicates that FB is mixing all these factors to detect and rank our friends. So... to those who hinted about the multiple use of algorithms, I want to say... it seems to me that is the explanation... and would add, to make thinks murky (and avoid perhaps some privacy lawsuits) they must be throwing in some random users too... just to keep us all in the dark.... So, we have all those variables thrown at once to select the list of friends plus pick a couple of random ones... and you will have your answer. :) -voila... I think I am done with my research. I hope this helps you a bit. Next thing... just to be sure is to ask this guy directly and see if he ventures to clarify it or confirm this summary... he he he

My ex bf keeps popping up in mine and i last looked at his profile sometime early this year, i never talk to him anymore... so now im curious ahaha

becauase they've veiw your profile the most

I think it's the people who stalk you the most.
I started liking this guy a few weeks ago and I was in a whole stalking phase where I would just visit his facebook pg a lot. after a while, I noticed that I was always in his sidebar.
then recently, I stopped going on his page. and when I finally went on his pg for the first time yesterday, I wasn't in his sidebar anymore. but now he's always showing up in mine(; so maybe this is just wishful thinking..

There is no such thing as random in computer algoriithms,,,..every 'random' calculation is based on a 'seed' value. I guess the seed value is FBs well guarded secret.

I know the whole "Whose been viewing your profile the most" idea has been used already but I completely agree. I think it's kinda creepy and I don't know why facebook would decide to use it like that but I don't have any other explanation. Okay what really got me into looking this up was exactly who my facebook was choosing to display as my top online friends, and also the friends who would display when I was offline and looking at my chat. A Girl who i've been friends with on facebook for well over a year and have many posts wall-to-wall with each other never shows up on my top chat list (when offline and looking at list). However, a girl I've added say about 2 weeks ago is on there every, single, day. I literally have no posts, likes, comments, or anything with this girl, besides 1 fundraising event that we both attended.

I also believe who appears in your search bar whenever you type just 1 letter is also decided by who is viewing your profile the most. Again a different girl who I talk to occasionally, and have been talking to for a long time, over facebook that used to show up all the time when I typed in "W" and was no.1 for when I took the "top 10 friends" quiz has stopped showing up recently. Instead the first person who pops up now when I type W is my girlfriend's ex boyfriend whom I'm not even friends with and only have 4 or so mutual friends with.

Anyway, I definitely need to know the exact logarithm for this so I can stop freaking about and thinking who is stalking my profile when some of the people who are showing up would creep me out if they were visiting my page more then people I interact with on a daily basis.

Can anyone tell me why everytime I log into faccebook, the list of friends on the left hand side of my profile always shows the same selection of friends? Also can you tell me how to change this?

Thanks

It isn't who is viewing your profile I don't think. It's more based on whose profile you view because I have dead friends who show up on there. I view their profile very often, but they aren't viewing mine...so yeah.

this actually really annoys me cause my ex is always on the little sidebar & i made a note not to stalk him so he wouldn't show up but he's always there & i was thinking maybe it's because i wrote happy birthday on his wall & i also liked a picture of him cause i was there but it seems a little extreme to still put him there cause i have 700 friends who i contact a lot more often.....so my conclusion is it's the ones who stalk you.

Facebook uses Internet Protocol to have the folks appear in your Who You May Know List, Plus people that open your profile will show up in the list too such as folks wanting to hire you for a job, ex spouses boyfriends, girlfriends EXT. Simply block them or deactivate your account after checking your messages EXT.
Back to Internet Protocol. This is your IP address on the machine you use. Facebook delivers cookies to your machine when you log in. Simply delete cookies after logging out. The cookies are stored on servers thus tells facebook everywhere you go online. They work even if you log out and don't delete the cookies. So wake everyone. Your being watched! LOL

I know everybody, including me, is hoping it's 'the one who stalk your profile the most".

However, after some extensive testing I have come to the conclusion it's just not the case.
About half of the people in your sidebar are completely random, while the other half are the ones you interacted with through likes, comments, tags on each others posts.

About three weeks ago I added a coworker to my facebook and we agreed that we wouldn't do anything (no comments, likes) and that she wouldn't visit my page.
Only me would go to her page every single hour and refresh her page (ctrl+F5, refresh) 15 times in a row every visit. I would also browse her extensive picture collection (without liking or commenting on one of them)

Three weeks later, I am still not on her sidebar, while there can be no doubt about her - as promised, I outstalked her page and there is no one who could have beaten me to it, the way I did it. Neither has she ever appeared in my sidebar so far.

So no, as much as I hoped it would have been - none of the people in your sidebar are based on the profiles you visit or get visited by the most.

so sad :'(

The list seems to change when you appear offline. Does anybody have any idea why? I feel that it when you go offline, the list shows people you interact with most + the ones you view the profile of most while the when you are online, its the people who visit your profile the most and the ones you interact with?

its been questioned that the people on your side bar are the people who look at your wall the most but i have asked those people and they actually dont its the people who are on facebook the most out of all your friends appear on the little side bar. so just pay attention of who is on the most and most likely they will appear on your friends list

I also wondered that before but then I reached and finally broke the Facebook's Algorithm.
It is NOT the person(s) who stalks to you frequently that shows on the side bar. It is the tags, comments, likes and interaction to friends are the factors. THIS IS THE ALGORITHM OF FACEBOOK. THERE IS NO BASIS FOR STALKERS. In my own facebook activities, I am always and everyday visiting a one friend's profile but I, myself doesn't show frequently to her sidebar. "Only once in a blue moon!!!", and that's because of the tags, comments, likes and interaction with her. Nothing to do with the stalking or visiting to her profile.

And as Facebook, themselves already said there is no way we can find out who is(are) seeing our profile. Which means the tagging, commenting and liking interaction and activities are only the factors why these friends keep showing on our side bar.

My dad created a facebook profile with a fake alias. No mutual friends and only belonged to the network of a high school that I have no affiliation with. He used our last name backwards as his name. my profile can be viewed by the public. He came up as one of my suggested friends and admitted to viewing my profile because he was curious... I think it is entirely possible that facebook uses views to determine who comes up on your chat... I don't know how anyone can be certain that they don't anyway...

I noticed something about the search bar. on my first initial I was second, but first on my last initial...Now after refreshing my page numerous times, I ended up first with both on my initials. This may in fact be, who ever is looking at your profile the most because I didn't surpass that person until I keep refreshing the page. My crush just so happens to show up first with both of his initials as well, and it has been months that he has stayed there...

I don't think anyone really has the answer, and whoever does will not reveal the full truth here because not only do I see quite a bit of conflicting details and opinions here, but I also see a lot of things said and hypothesized that completely contradict what happens with my friend sidebar. However, I do notice the ONE similarity that a majority of us notice and can agree on, and that is the fact that PROFILE VIEWING DOES effect the sidebar and plays a role in who shows up!

I speak to very few people in chat, and NONE of those people ever show up there. I have quite a few people I interacted with for a long period of time and they VERY RARELY, IF EVER showed up there. But, I do notice that the people I would suspect to be "spying" on my profile (for certain specific reasons) DO show up there, and in addition to that, I tried an experiment which revealed the truth - and the truth is that profile viewing plays a role towards who shows up TO A CERTAIN DEGREE. Yes, I do get these "random" people I used to talk to a lot a few months back, and also some girl who only logs in every month or even two months before "disappearing" again (but for some reason was in that sidebar 90% of the time from May-August), but for the most part, I notice that the people who I know would be viewing my profile are the ones that show up most!

I wont reveal my experiment since doing so would make who I am highly obvious if I explained it in detail to anyone who might happen to be here from my friends list (and I also want to protect my "Hottsoundz NOW" name since that's my anonymous name on the net), but I'll just say that the experiment worked WONDERS at finally solidifying proof that views/viewing does play a role!

I'm just glad that now, for the most part, I can tell who has looked at my profile recently. What's even more convenient is that this ONLY works for people you have, or used to frequently interact with. If it's some random person you never spoke to (or in other words, someone you don't care about) visiting your profile, or some brand new added friend, then they will (most likely) not show based on viewing - until you start having an interaction with them for some period of time (and you also wont see yourself show on theirs when you visit their profile). I also notice THE SAME RESULTS when I'm completely logged out, viewing my profile as an "outsider", just in case anyone was interested to know that.

Now, I must mention that I do not have any "tagged" family members or specific types of labeled relationships with people where people could easily see what my precise relationship to certain people are, so those of you who do have relationship statuses tagged, may, of course, get different results due to doing that.

I'm pretty sure it's who views your profile the most. Because this girl who likes me but never comments/likes anything is always on mine.

 And another girl who I have a crush on, when I 'stalk' her profile a lot, I appear on her sidebar, but when I don't for a couple of days, I'm not there.

UPDATE:
The Facebook press office emailed me to state that the friends list on the new profile is categorically not down to who is clicking on your profile. According to their statement - it is organised according to who you have had the most public interaction with in the past month and a half.

We quote the Facebook spokesperson:

"The Friend's list default view is now ordered by the amount of public interaction you have with the friends in your network. When you navigate to your friends page you will see up to 50 friends with whom you have had the most public interaction within the past month and a half. These friends are displayed in a random order. The order will change every time you refresh your friends page. An alphabetical ordering of friends is still available by clicking on the second list icon to the right of the "Search friends."

Hi all!
And what do you think it can mean, if i appear in my crush's list, and he appears in mine as well ?

I can admit that he watches me, but it also can be, that in both cases it happens because i stalk him alot, and his actions have nothing to do with it ? ..

I think it is based on who view you the most because I am viewing my crush's profile most of the time and I appear on his sidebar (embarrassing right?) but what I noticed is he is on my side bar too, that's why I bet that it's not a random pick, because that looks like a miracle incidence that we are on each others sidebar if it is a random pick only, so I am hoping that he is viewing my profile too. LOL but the other 5 on my featured friends are my close friends which I know that they are really looking alot to my profile even if I refresh my page many times he is always on my sidebar and I am on his, Then I get a help from my friend who is in other country from mine to view our profiles and She still see the same, I am on his side bar and he is on mine. so maybe it is a WHO VIEW YOU sidebar.

The sideber basically shows whos recently viewed your profile.

i believe it is quite a complex algorithm, otherwise SOMEONE is bound to have figure it out by now. There are quite a few variables from what i have seen, although what some people say directly contradicts what another says. I however do know it DOES have to do with how many times you view someones profile. I like a guy, and talked to him over IM twice. we have mutually liked about two statuses and were both tagged in one picture and both commented. this is barely ANY public interatction, however he has been on my friend sidebar for a month. there is SOME public interaction, but very little compared to MANY of my other friends. there are also friends i am close to, and random. truth be told besides my close friends i really have no idea who would be stalking my profile i dont thing anyone would. also, this person i like as far i know i have never been on his friend sidebar

I am quite sure friends appear more often on your Facebook Profile sidebar are those who've been online on FB for the last few hours. That's all.

Well for all you people who say its whoever I talk to most or have stuff in common with . . there are people there i dont ever talk to nd dont have friends incommon with me . . . so that cant be true . .

I have my ex keep showing up in my sidebar ALWAYS and that sucks!
I never look up his profile, and NEVER interact with him on fb coz we hid our relationship from public. Well maybe we both tagged in some group pics, but that's from almost 2 years ago.
The logical explanation is that he keeps checking out my profile. What do you guys think about that?

I don't think it's who views your profile the most, I think it's who has viewed your profile most recently. In my experiments, I can make someone show up just by telling them to visit my page.

I love all the posts from people who say "I never look at their page, but I keep on showing up in their friends list."

I really want a way to keep my interactions from showing up all over facebook world. I don't mind the sidebar so much, but I hate that everything I do is shown to everyone. I am assuming there is no way to keep me from popping up on others sidebars???

its the very recent viewers . if you check back an hour later nd they are still there that means for the whole day the visited your page more than 3 times either tat or no one has viewed you -_-

I have an ex-friend from way back. We have never been FB friends. I have never viewed her FB account. We have no FB friends in common. She has been appearing on my sidebar recently. Logical conclusion : she has been viewing my FB profile. FB has no other way of connecting us.

Well all the mysteries will disappear soon and we won't get a real answer ever - Facebook is implementing the new layout as we speak and it appears there is NO sidebar anymore...

so considering that your friends are your friends and you generally add people you somehow admire you probably will get one ore two that you really want to be stalking you! so fuck i have been f5ing for a day until i get the best combination when i got it i couldnt move anymore from that page!...now serious there are people that i have never looked at their profile and they appear in my sidebar, there's also a wife of a friend that added me from nothing and is always there wow! what am I thinking? there is a average of 4 girls that I really wish they are stalking me so I think my mind is influencing the facebook which is no surprise and this is the proof that zuckerberg already developed an algorithm that infects your mind and send information to the facebook central.

I don't get it. One guy who I NEVER talk to, and have never ever even clicked on his profile always without fail pops up. Also a few guys I know have a bit of a crush on me often pop up too, which doesn't suprise me. One random girl who I never talk to and never go on her profile also always pops up without fail, like every day. It's so confusing. There are other people I always interract with who never come up on the sidebar. As an experiment, I clicked on the profile of someone I rarely interract with over two days and lo and behold! I ended up in their side bar. I'm now convinced - its who stalks you. Fb covers up by saying its random but its clearly not.

i heard that it's the people who most recently looked at your profile! according to mine it seems pretty accurate

for the people who say that they check other peoples profiles daily and do not show up on there side bars that does not mean anything because you don't know if other people check their profiles more than you do! i still believe the bar is for people who check your profile often.

i swear its the people who the person whos profile it is has viewed a lot.
cause, im always checking up on my boyfriends profile, and we mostly talk through chat and inbox (and even then i talk to many other people more than him) and he is ALWAYS in my list when i view my profile even though we hardly talk over facebook (and we're not "in a relationship' on facebook, so theres no way that could be it.....)
But then at the same time, it appears that there are one or two random people who's profiles i never look at that are in there a majority of the time.....
And then i see me in random peoples sidebar friends and i get really freaked out...
whatever, my point is i SWEAR, absolutely, from what ive seen this is who stalks you or who you stalk, because i know my certain, erm, "facebook habits" (stalking) and it just seems to be directly related to who pops up there on my list/their lists

Well my ex gf shows up on that list almost all the time. We never made our relationship official on facebook. We were together on some pictures but even the pics are deleted for more than 5 months now. I have to see her every day in uni, but I haven't talked or even looked at her in half a year. I completely ignore her AND her friends. I haven't stalked her profile or even talked to any of her friends I added when we met, and blocked her from my news feed. Haven't chatted with her nor did I like something she posted or leave something on her wall.

I have literally NO contact AT ALL with her.


But she is constantly constantly constantly in my sidebar ....

I also wondered that before but then I reached and finally broke the Facebook's Algorithm.
It is NOT the person(s) who stalks to you frequently that shows on the side bar. It is the tags, comments, likes and interaction to friends are the factors. THIS IS THE ALGORITHM OF FACEBOOK. THERE IS NO BASIS FOR STALKERS. In my own facebook activities, I am always and everyday visiting a one friend's profile but I, myself doesn't show frequently to her sidebar. "Only once in a blue moon!!!", and that's because of the tags, comments, likes and interaction with her. Nothing to do with the stalking or visiting to her profile.

And as Facebook, themselves already said there is no way we can find out who is(are) seeing our profile. Which means the tagging, commenting and liking interaction and activities are only the factors why these friends keep showing on our side bar.

A mix of factors:

1- Who you have recently or in the past frequently interacted with i.e. like, poke, commented etc.
2- Who has viewed your profile
3- Who is online currently on facebook. Everytime this certain guy that I don't interact with at all is always on my sidebar but he is always online on facebook chat. Because he is online, Facebook want me to interact with him as he can interact back immediately.

That's my experience.

The people on the left side bar, are the people who view your profile the most!

i'm quite sure it is based on who has been viewing your profile...not all the friends, but 3, 4 or 5 of them at least, with some being random.....i was that curious that i made a note of my side bar list for about 10 days....!LOL

so one thing i noticed (and maybe you want to check it on yours too) is that everyday, there are 3 friends on the list that were there the previous day..always just 3...strange??

(oh i forgot to say i've noticed that the list changes every 24hours) so no matter how many refreshes i do during the day the same 10 folk come up but just in different order....

i have 2 friends that dont use facebook a lot.....i think one of them is profiling me a lot....so i stopped looking at their profile months ago.... .so i notice when they are online as i see their activity in the ticker bar....then next day they appear on my sidebar....uncanny eh?.....and they even clarified this the other day by texting me saying they liked my pics i'd put up!!....this tells me they viewed me and voila the next day after they have been on facebook this person appears on my list.....they only go on about 2 or 3 times a week.

another name that pops up all the time is someone who has given up using facebook, they pop up about 4 times a week, thats a strange one, we have no private messages or hardly interacted, but was tagged together in a few photos.

also, i never use facebook chat...so none of the above is relevant to who you chat too, as it is always turned off for me.

so for me, i would summarise that its a mix of who's profile viewed you, 3 freinds from the previous days list and a couple of other randoms that i've not quite figured out yet....

if you're a bit nerdy and curious like me, you'll make your own sidebar log for 2 weeks and post your results on here when completed:)

ps.....interestingly today has been the first day where i have 2 completely different sidebar lists? i dont know why?
i noticed list 1 this morning...made a note.....then later on a completely different list? (list 2)

after an hour or so, it went back to list 1, then back to list 2, and now list 1 again......this is the first time i've noticed this for weeks??

also, lets not forget we have no idea what data facebook really collects, it was only a year or go that google got caught collecting private data..

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/15/business/15googl...

im not totally sure that this is true but i heard that it is the people who visit your profile the most i revisited it about 5 times and had the same people every time just different order

When im offline, the friends that are on the sidebar is the same people for like awhile now. Weeks.. Only once in a while 1-2 friends that are replaced. But those 1-2 friends that replaces the previous, are from the ones that have i.m'd me or just chatted with kind of thing. The friends that are on that offline chatbar, most of them i am interact with a bit, through post, comments, likes, etc. So it could possibly be people that you interact with the most? im hoping they are the ones who view my profile because there is this one guy i like that is on there :) I have only liked few of his status but commented him twice. So we rarely, have interaction on fb. But i do check his profile too LOL >.< a girl can hope the friends on the chatbar/sidebar viewing her profile LOL :P But curious to why when im offline, those alphabetized friends that are on my chatbar?

I think it is actually quite sinister in some ways. It's a game. For the drama. The matrix at work to drive some people crazy as they see ex boyfriend pics show up on pages of girls they don't like. The question is how does FB know this. It does. I have been very interested in this topic for a while and have tried to get behind the typical explanations, and none of them fly, based on my own experience or that of my kids. There is a matrix in place to play with people's heads. TAKE IT TO THE BANK

I have just a handful of friends on fb, so it's easy for me to keep track of their whereabouts...and I notice that when a friend appears in the top spot of the sidebar, they've just commented on my posting, or that they have just posted about or to me. I see that they've just come online, etc. I'm 95% sure that it's who has viewed your profile/wall, etc. No such thing as coincidence when it comes to fb!

I am pretty sure its who views your profile or maybe a combination of that and whose profile you view, and maybe a random person thrown in there. In my friends list the same people constantly show up and its mostly close friends and family (or people I used to be close with.) I have random people I barely know or never met and they rarely show up. It's not always who you interact with either, because I don't really interact with most of my friends, yet they constantly show up. One of my old friends shows up a lot of the time and I know she always is looking at my profile because she likes most of my photos and statuses. I also refresh my page and the list doesn't really change that much. I tried an experiment with someones page and looked at it several times and I showed up on her side bar.

Also when I added my crush on Facebook, he was always showing up on my sidebar. I am not sure if its because I was viewing his profile, or he was looking at mine (I later found out he liked me too.) I know it is not a coincidence and we weren't interacting on Facebook at the time so I can't think of any other reason. Unless Facebook can somehow read people's minds.

My guess is that the last people that interacted with your profile in some way. May it be by simply stopping by your page, signing a photo, dropping a message or comment. NOTE: If the person hasn't signed on in weeks or months and they still appearing at random in your "Featured Friends List", this could mean that your profile was the last profile they kept coming to before signing out and the same goes with someone who might only have a small number of friends on their page they visit. Maybe they visit you more, so the FB algorithm system has it figured that you and this person are very close when in fact you might not be. Good way to see who's watching you, but be careful...they will know too. Also, every first letter of the alphabet entered into search will reveal this information as well.

Just curious, facebook smartphone apps( android, apple, blackberry) can potentially collect the information about your phone calls and texts. and they can use the information to enhance chat bar. There will be always some friends on my Facebook chat bar, I do not communicate through Facebook. It might be random, but here i go. A girl who is in my chat bar for about 2 months drunk dial me and told me that she likes me ;)

Why doesn't Facebook have a help site that would answer this question?

I really think it is the 10 friends that most recently viewed you profile. This would explain why it is mostly people you know. Also, would explain some randoms every now and then. I know it has nothing to do with friends you have the most contact with, because my best friends and boyfriend almost never appear.

It really confuses me. I feel very weird when random people show up.

yes there on the side bar because those are the people who visit your page the most

Anyone using the new facebook layout yet?
There are 2 x 6 different friends showing and from what I am seeing it is using a different algorithm than the one used on the old layout (the 10 friends bar)

I think they changed it recently and it's not showing the ones who viewed your profile the most recently.
Can someone explain me this:
A girl I met two months ago and with whom I corresponding like crazy (wall posts, page visits and likes) since then, has never once showed up in any of my bars before.
On the other hand a girl whom I used to check out and send to a lot for 8 months, still keeps showing up on my bars, while we haven't interacted at all for the last three months [we are in a serious argument] - In these three last months I have visited her page like 4 times and I know from before she hardly ever checked out my page before...

Can someone put some logic into this one?

I live abroad and still have my whole family in my home country. Yesterday I told them that I had posted a lot of X-mas pictures on fb (we are a really big family). This morning when I logged in to fb, almost the entire family turned up in my friends sidebar (I guess since they'd all been checking out the pics I posted, i.e. they had all visited my profile).

i never interact or anything with the people who show up on my side bar though. i think its either who i view the most or who views me, ;P

I reckon its who views your account most because:

i interact alot with my friend but he doesnt appear on the side list

Because people i view regularly dont appear on the side list

And because 3 people stalk my profile and their all on the side list

I think it's a combination of people who view your profile, people whose profile you view, and a bit of interaction.
I have 1 or 2 people who I USED to check their profiles regularly. This was probably some 7 or 8 months ago, and they still pop up on my sidebar even though I've stopped checking their profiles.
Also, there is 1 person I'm suspecting could be a stalker, and his name only pops up on my sidebar RIGHT AFTER he comes online, then it stays there for hours.
And a bit of interaction because I have a friend whom I used to talk with a bit on Facebook. Not much anymore, but she still pops up on my sidebar and I pop up on hers.
And there are those 2 or 3 random people that Facebook puts in to confuse and annoy you. I seriously doubt it's a coincidence.

I Think Its The People Who View Your Profile That Day, Because I Don't View There Profile Nor Really Talk To Any Of Them..

I have been wondering the same thing. made a survey for some answers...it is only 4 questions and will take 2 seconds to do. I will also post the results! click this link http://www.surveybuilder.com/s/KKaYfiD_AAA

reason facebook got timeline...becuase people are catching unto the fact that the sidebar has to do with your top stalkers. facebook doesnt wanna lose money. zuckerburg you dog.

It changes all the time. its just random so that they can get you to talk to all your friends and some how meet new people. or it could be that most recent veiwers not who veiws you the most or who you veiw the most i rarely ever vewi any of mine.

it also has to do with your phone. if you are connected to facebook through your phone, and if you have it set up so that it connects your facebook contacts and your phone contacts, then the friends you call may also be factored into that algorithm.

I've read the whole thread and got all those opposite opinions and experiment results. In sum, they are converged into roughly three hypotheses:

1. people who appear on the sidebar are who VIEW your profile the most.
2. people who appear on the sidebar are whose profiles are VIEWED by you the most.
3. Both above are all bull. It is definitely defined by other recent interactions like message, like, replies, and etc.

Some of the people in the threads say that they did the experiment- they viewed the other experimenter's profile regularly quite a period but they never showed up in the other's sidebar. And some say their passed-away people still shows up in their sidebar. Also refreshing the cache or logging out aren't quite helpful to make some change on sidebar members.

Dude, I think it is the matter of frequency, like every other person who wrote all those opinion. But my point is that the frequency of appearing on the sidebar may be calculated by the formular of the inverse proportion of the frequency of interaction, while direct proportion of the length of the visiting period; that is to say, too much interaction in a relatively short period could low the possibility of YOUR appearing on other's sidebar. I think regular access of the target person's wall in a relatively long period could raise up the possibility of appearing. This might be an accumulative basis- if someone regularly visited your walls or profiles quite a long period before, the possibility that he or she appears on your sidebar goes up; so the person remains on yours. And me parece, the longer the period of the regular visiting, the longer the visitor remains on your sidebar.

I think visiting "once in a blue moon" rather have stronger influences on sidebar appearing than a couple of views in a day. I guess the purpose of the fb developers- what do they want to us? more social networking. more frequent interactions with not only among near friends but also the nodes far far away. If we interact with someone frequently enough, he or she does not need to be listed up because is a kind of a redundancy to show them on your sidebar! Rather, someone who visit you seldom should be pinned up on your sidebar to poke you to re-visit.

However, I think this is only one of the various logics that construct fb's algorithm. I suppose there might be other independent rules set for only "relatively short period", and etc.

Well ive come to conclusion about the friends on the left of your profile page, after months of observing I notice that I've been having the same people on my left so I am pretty sure that the people on your left are the ones who recently viewed your profile,photos etc.

wrong wrong wrong

How do you even know who's been viewing your profile.

Your friends list is ordered by who you publicly interact with most often.. ie wall post, mutual public events, comments... That is it!

It's not random!

And facebook does not record profile viewing

It's very obvious to me:
read the FAQ CAREFULLY: "However, Facebook does not select friends to show based on whose profiles you choose to view or who you interact with over messages and chat. "
So...
-> not based on whose profile YOU watch
-> can be based on who watches YOUR profile (they don't deny it in the faq)

from my own experience I'm 100% sure it's partially based on who watches my profile the most!

@silent-h: off course fb records profile viewing: they record EVERYTHING and who watches who (without interactions) is pretty important stuff to record (they want to understand why we watch so they can 'force' more interactions)


My QUESTION: I have the impression that the visible friends box on the new Timeline behaves different: it looks like its more based on mutual friends and stuff... Can anyone comment on this plz?

Is the friends-box on the timeline the same as the friends list on the old profile? Do you think it works the same way?

forgot to say:

-If e.g. Sara marks me as just an "aquintance", she can look at my profile every day, but she will never appear in my friends list on the left.

About FB recording what/who you watch:
-when I go e.g. on Sara's profile (click once to go to her profile) and immediately back to my own profile, I see about 6 suggestions to join a group that might interest me... Unsurprisingly, Sara is a member of most/all groups.

So, what silent-h said is wrong, wrong, wrong: they clearly record profile viewing !!!

-the same is true when I open an old pm to e.g. Sara (don't type, just get right back to own profile), again I see group suggestions that have Sara as member... So even your private interactions (or just looking at mails) gets registered by facebook and has an immediate impact on what you see!

You should try this yourself with some random friends.

I believe that Facebook chat plays a big role as well. Me and my housemate talk on Facebook 24/7. All the time. He is constantly on my top friends, but we almost never interact publicly/ been tagged in many pictures together. There was this guy who has reasons to stalk me since last week and he hasn't popped up on my top friends almost at all until last week -and now he's constantly there. Apart from that, I always see my best friends that I talk on Facebook all the time, both of the people I'm with in my profile picture. Plus, there is this girl I used to interact a lot with last year and have plenty of pictures with, but it's been more that 6 months since we stopped contacting each other and she's frequently up there. Plus another girl I have been on vacation with together and have plenty of pictures with as well.

It's mostly people that you interact with a lot. But I find it kind of strange that my old boyfriend and a guy I used to talk to show up there quite often. My old boyfriend and I didnt communicate much through Facebook, maybe a couple chats and a few comments and likes. And the guy I used to talk with maybe had 3 chats with and no public contact. So hmmm...

i think that it is who has last viewed your profile

I dont know why you people keep referring to a friends list on the left. We are in discussion about the top friends that appear in your chat side bar located on the right side of the window.

I rarely interact with anyone on facebook; however, some people I do interact with a lot are almost always in my sidebar.

There are also people I never interact with or view their profile who appear on my sidebar, but they pop in and out of the top of my list and the part of the list labeled "more online friends". Some of these people are old friends and some are people who I recently interacted with in real life. A few are also girls who i believe to be interested.

If I had to make an assumption about what is going on here, I would say that there is a simple formula in play here. It weights every aspect of a user's facebook experience in relation to a friend. This experience includes profiles they view and views of their own profile in addition to public interaction and chat sessions. Once these values for each aspect of interaction are weighted based on importance, they are added together. Once this happens for each friend, the friends list is sorted based on this summed value.

The developers of facebook want the list to always be the best list they can possibly recommend. If someone has literally no public interactions(worst potential case) they still need some value to sort friends by because the way the code works, this sorting process is going to happen for every user whether they have 2 friends or 700 friends and whether they have just 2 interactions or a million. Would it make sense to give every friendship that does not have any public interactions a value of 0? The answer is no because the developers want their sort to work the best it could and they know just like everyone else that a facebook friendship is much more than the public stuff.

There are too many friendships across the database that have an empty list of public interactions for these to all have equal values of 0.

For someone who does not do much public interacting, the effects of profile viewing on the friend list sort process is much more noticeable. This is all logical speculation.

For those of you think facebook isnt keeping a list of the profiles you view because that is what they say, they could very easily keep a list of every click you have made on their website. They would store that list, so whenever they want to know what profiles you view they could just pull all profile views from the complete list every time instead of storing the info as a separate list. This keeps their statement truthful while allowing them to circumvent it.

it's NOT about the comments, likes, and tags of photos that you do on their profile or vice versa that make them appear on your friend's list because me and my best friend interact with each other publically a lot and i never appeared on his friend's list. it's NOT who views your profile the most because i view my best friend's profile almost everyday and i'm never appeared on his friend's list. i think it's just random.

All I know is, it doesn't make much sense to have 150 friends, and only ever see the posts of 10 of them! We might just as well email back and forth with those few! FB isn't nearly as fun as it used to be. You know that when you check in, you're gonna see the same dozen people every time. Now, what DOES make sense is that there is no way you could see ALL your friends' posts, especially for those who have hundreds of friends! It just seems that FB could mix it up, regardless of whether you've recently communicated or not. That's how you stay connected with people!

Hi I have a question guys..
what about the search bar?..."Mr.crush" appears the first under the first letter of his first name, his second name, and his last name!!..however, he never shows up in my chat bar, and in the friends list bar in the profile...
what does that mean?
does he view me? or I view him, or neither?
I haven't looked at him in like at least 15 days now..

Well actually I just made a second profile to run a few tests. I tried stalking my other profile and chatting but the second profile don't show up on my sidebar so hmmmmm?

Of course people see what's there. it's fact. and there is a pattern in these answers to COMPLETELY support the theory that who has viewed your profile recently will show up on the left side bar of friends. Even if it doesn't 'shake things up' enough, as some users would like, Facebook still undoubtedly intends for it to get you to communicate. Most of us WANT to see who's viewed our profile and of course Facebook would know and use this to their advantage. They can hide this in all the legal sounding words they want, but as one person said here, they DON'T deny it. and another person(s) pointed out that 'interacting' could easily include the simple viewing of a profile, in THEIR definition.

There could also be multiple formulas for pulling the people to the side bar. If you don't have the first set of criteria such as who's view you today, or whatever, then the software 'rolls over' to a second set of criteria, such as who viewed you last, even if it was last month. As for deceased friends, the formula could of course include a portion of your friends without recent activity -- Facebook utilizing your activity to bring someone back to regular interaction, not knowing anything but that the deceased person hasn't been on Facebook in a while. To cover themselves they probably do throw in a small portion of randomness. I think there are too many factors and people see too many different patterns for there to be only one formula. If the software doesn't have the numbers in your profile for one formula, it goes to the next, until the spaces are filled.

If I was playing the 1 Million pound drop and this was the first question. Id put 1 Million on... It Is people that check your profile out most. The less frequent the visitors more randoms will be placed in there.
Ive been wondering this for the last 4 months or so when they updated Facebook the last time and every time I have checked Facebook ive had this consistent thought that Ive never had any reason to doubt.

I am pretty sure that this has something to do with who views your profile.
Whenever, and I mean whenever I post something my ex appears on the side bar. (upper in the new timeline.) We have never had any public interaction on facebook (as we kept our relationship secret), no chat, no tagged photos together, comments or likes, and I only moderately check his profile, certainly not stalking him like crazy whatsoever. And this situation starts exactly after he likes the page facebook for i-phone.. approximately two weeks ago. I have good reasons to think that he downloaded the application and makes use of it to mobile-track my activity on face as since then he also *constantly* appears in my friends box.

This is something which intrigues me. There is one person who I talk to very regularly on PM but never publicly, and she is always on my list. Almost {note} everyone else is someone I have 'interacted' with recently.

She and I did, however, have an extremely long wall chat some time ago, which suggests that it considers something along the lines of 'largest number of recent wall posts [+other public actions] by any given person'.

But there are other aspects too; There are people on mine who I haven't spoken to in years, or never, ever have spoken to publicly. Randomisation?

I also note that more than half of them are people I only interact with privately. Yes, you have to visit someone's page to PM them, but I am now starting to think that it includes people you PM as well as publicly interact with.

ive been "seeing" someone for about 5 months.. weve maybe had all together 4 or 5 comments on posts.. and liked a few things here or there.. but no pictures or anything cause he isnt into sharing his "relationships" with the world.. well he is 99% of the time on my friends list on my new time line.. both in the big box AND little box in the about me section. the other friends will change a lot.. a few more frequent than others.. but he is there the most. i look at his page a lot but i dont always see myself on his friends list....

I think Facebook TELLS us that it's who we interact with publicly, because if they admitted it that would be admitting that they are breaking privacy policies.
I KNOW it's not who you interact with publicly, because the same guy comes up every single time, and I've never interacted with him publicly.

@"wouldnt you like to know":

I'm pretty sure your friends can't see your top 6 or 8, when they visit your profile. When they look at your profile, they will have their most mutual friends that are friends with your friends filling that up.

The way you can tell is if you go to, "View as" and then type the person's name in the box to see how they would view your profile.

I stumbled on this blog when I noticed the girl I have a crush on has been on my sidebar for the last half a year. Thing is, I've never visited her profile once in the past 2 years and we share only a handful of mutual friends. What's the consensus on how inbound clicks on your profile matter?

@hopelessromantic

Have you ever had any contact with her on FB? PMs, chat, likes/comments?

nope nothing on my end. I think one of my buddies (also either dated or was her best friend over 2 years ago, but they haven't had any public comments in the last 2 years. She's somehow dropped off the list today though, but I'm sure she'll be back on there eventually. My buddy working at google is in the same situation as her (we never contact on facebook, and I don't remember last time I looked at his profile) and he'll blink in and out for the last 3 months. Of the ten people on that list,6 of them I would consider my close friends I always comment on. Google dude and girl are always around and the other 1 or 2 seem random to me.

I did do an experiment yesterday where I clicked on the profile of a friend I never talk to, and sure enough he's was on my ten people on the right hand bar for at least briefly! So I think its a two way street.

I want to say that the people on your left side is people who look at your profile the most. Because i do have the same people that show up on that list are my closest friends and i rarely go on peoples profile.The list does change every few days but eventually its a cycle and the same friends show up. I do like things the friends on that list of their posts if only if i see it on the newsfeed. And i rarely comment on their walls or PM them or chat with them.

As someone mentioned previously, i do have my crush on the left side as well so i may be trying to justify my reasonsing haha xD I think their are others ways facebook keep track of who views your profile the most additional to the right side bar on your profile. Frist, people who show up in your search bar with each letter you type, individually. Especially if they show up on every letter of their initials. I think that the more the person searches you and you go on their page, the higher they are on that search bar. Possibly, first for each letter of their initials. Secondly, If you are online from the chatbar there is a set of friends as well check your profile. Third, if you hover a persons name/picture, the five mutual friends that show up. Lastly, if you check "see friendship" with you and a friend or two friends, if you look under the mutual friends list on the left side, those are friends who look at your profile the most. Question is, do you find the same friends in all of these ways?

Although, i did notice that after i click on a persons profile, that friend would show up on my search bar with whatever initial their names are. But after the next log in or next refresh, that friend disappears and the original list of friends under each letter comes back.

All of these ways, i do have the same friends that show up in all those ways. Which of course are my closest friends. And also cause the guy i like is present in all five ways :)))

It's not people who view your profile. People always say this because they stalk people they admire, like, have a crush on, desire, etc, and then start seeing said person(s) showing up when they view their own profile. This only means that you view their profile a lot. You are the only one that sees them. If it was them always viewing your profile only they would be able to see that when they look at thier own profile (which you wouldn't be able to see anyway).
It's literally just a combination of:
- People you have interacted with
- Family
- People from similar groups or events
- People with a high mutual friend
- Probably the total amount of interactions etc of a whole friendhsip history
- And people you view the most.

I think it's sly the way they do people you view the most because obviously you're viewing that person for a reason and if you're not interacting you're probably hoping they'll interact with you. If you see they pop up you're more likely to believe they've been recently interacting with your profile and be more likely to talk to them even though the only reason they've shown up is because of your own activity.

Are you guys talking about facebook timeline or old profile? Because the former seems to have different algorithm...

I am using Facebook timeline and has always been curious how certain 6 people would appear in the box.

Some of them I could understand, either they are my close friends who would like or comment on my update, some I used to stalk, but no longer now (at least for the past 2 months), some may be stalking me.

The only thing that confuses me is why this particular good friend of mine, whom I know would check out my facebook every day and comment as much as he would (he told me so because he found my post interesting). He never appears in the box of 6 people. Why?

^^how often do you interact with his profile, opposed to him interacting to yours?

Pretty sure it's based on who views your profile. In fact, I've believed this for a long time now because I always have the same select few who are viewing me (friends and girls that want me). And then the random person that pops up especially when I post a status or a new photo or something. So I am willing to bet all of my wealth that it is 90% based on people viewing YOU.

It actually makes sense because when Facebook is showing you the girls/boys/exes looking at your profile, you naturally are intrigued and thus stay on longer, increasing Facebook's revenue through their ads. Everyone stalks their lovers on Facebook so it only makes sense for Facebook to show YOU who's looking at you the most and thus increasing your interest in logging on all the time. If a girl keeps looking at your profile, it's obvious she is interested in you. It's a great business strategy. Well done Facebook and I will continue to click ads for you.

I picked a random person out of my 500 friends that i never even looked at their profile, and viewed it over and over by searching their name then going back on my browser 15 times. Their name had not appeared on my sidebar, but after a while I went up the list until at 15 profile views, I was the first friend that appeared on his sidebar. coincidence? I think not. The sidebar is an indication of your top stalkers. thats all, folks! try it for yourselves!