Your Facebook News Feed is about to get a little more interesting, if the social network's latest changes are successful.
The updates, announced on Tuesday, are intended to bring you more content that actually interests you, and fewer posts you don't care about. So what can you expect? More posts from friends, for starters.
Facebook said it will begin prioritizing content posted directly by the friends you care about — such as photos, videos, status updates, or links.
"For people with many connections this is particularly important, as there is a lot of content for them to see each day," Facebook Product Manager Max Eulenstein and User Experience Researcher Lauren Scissors said in a statement.
Facebook said the update is based on user feedback, but it might not sit well with everyone — namely, those who operate Facebook pages. Eulenstein and Scissors warned that some pages may take a hit as a result of these changes, depending on their audience and posting activity.
"In some cases, post reach and referral traffic could potentially decline," they said. "Overall, pages should continue to post things that your audience finds meaningful and continue using our Page post best practices."
If you like seeing page posts in your News Feed, don't fret. They're not going away completely. Facebook said it will continue to show page posts the News Feeds of people who like interacting with this content.
"This update tries to make the balance of content the right one for each individual person," Eulenstein and Scissors said.
Meanwhile, Facebook is also aiming to improve the experience for people who don't have a lot of content to see by relaxing a rule preventing people from seeing multiple posts from the same source in a row. Now, if you want to spend more time in News Feed, Facebook will show you more content — even if it's all from the same few people.
Finally, Facebook said that "many people" have said they don't enjoy seeing stories about their friends liking or commenting on a post. So, you'll now see less of this type of content.
"This update will make these stories appear lower down in News Feed or not at all, so you are more likely to see the stuff you care about directly from friends and the pages you have liked," Eulenstein and Scissors said.
Facebook has been making News Feed tweaks for awhile now. In September, it said it would prioritize timely posts, about a year after it pledged to surface "high-quality" content.
The announcement comes the same day that Google is also updating its search algorithm to favor those with "mobile-friendly" site, a move that some have called "mobile-geddon" for its potential impact on sites that rely on Google search traffic.