Facebook (FB) is taking a page from Google’s (GOOG) playbook. The social networking giant on Tuesday unveiled a search service. It is not aimed at toppling Google from its perch as the king of Web search any time soon. Instead, it is the opening round in a long-term campaign to erode Google’s monopoly over the most powerful and profitable business on the Internet. If successful, Facebook’s so-called “graph search” will offer users an alternative to Google that may work better for many types of queries. In due time, it could turn into a tidy business for Facebook.

“Graph search is not Web search,” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, said during a packed press conference at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.

Indeed, Facebook only searches for things that have happened on its sprawling site. For now, it concentrates on four types of searches: people, photos, interests and places. But the types of queries possible with Facebook’s new service are innovative and useful. Users can “find friends who like soccer” or “find friends who like soccer in your hometown.” Users can find all the photos they’ve liked or all the photos their friends have taken in Paris. They can find restaurants in San Francisco liked by friends who are locals, or by friends who are Indian―say if they’re in the mood for spicy food. Users can’t do that on Google.

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