You'll Want To See This Before You Start Searching On Facebook

Here's a PSA for anyone on Facebook: go have a look-see at what you've been searching.

Before users get too excited about Facebook's new search engine and start tracking down fellow "Girls" fans or single coworkers, they'd be advised to check out an oft-overlooked section of their profiles that documents every search performed on Facebook since September 2012.

Every high-school sweetheart stalked, every ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend examined, every job candidate scoped out is listed in chronological order, together with the date and time of the search.

This search data isn't public, but at least a few Facebook users were shocked to see an unadulturated list of all the people they'd been stalking. "This makes me want to die," tweeted @katiecamp5. Another user remarked she'd "die if this was ever public." Of course, if that list is visible to you, as the owner of the profile, it's also visible to any one who might happen to have access to your profile while you're logged in -- a spouse or significant other, say.

As Facebook rolls out its search engine, Graph Search, and pushes its users to perform more queries on the social network, it's worth bearing in mind that those queries are not only logged, but stored in an easily-accessible way.

Lars Rasmussen, Facebook search head and a former Google employee, noted in the company's press conference Tuesday that searches "will be tracked in your activity log," according to Engadget. Facebook updated its Activity Log to include search queries in September 2012.

To review your search history, go to your Facebook profile, navigate to the "Activity Log" button on the right-hand side of the page, click the "Search" tab in the column on the left-hand side of the page and gasp in horror. (To find the "Search" tab, you may need to click "More" under the section that begins with "Photos.") You can delete individual queries or clear the search activity by clicking "Clear Searches" at the top of the page.

Let us know what you found when you checked out your search history.