A great use for reddit is the ability to search posts and opinions about any niche topic. Will that be possible with Lemmy as it grows? Will I be able to Google “instant rice Lemmy” and get a comprehensive tier list of each brand?

I imagine search engines will have trouble with all the different instances(?). EDIT: Especially with instances that don’t have Lemmy in their name, I don’t think search engines would return them for Lemmy searches?

  • marsara9@lemmy.world
    67·
    1 year ago

    So I’ve been working on a solution for this.

    As I see it Google and others are going to have a hard if not impossible time to incorporate the fediverse, and the fact that the same content can exist on multiple servers.

    So I’m working on a search engine specifically build, for Lemmy at least. Where it’ll take you to whatever your preferred instance is when tapping on a search result.

    I hope to have a MVP up and running in a few more days.

    • PierreKanazawa@fedia.io
      1·
      1 year ago

      Tried it, pretty cool, though seems still depend on search engines’ indexing. The instance that I’m on seems not indexed.

      Also it’s interesting it uses intext to identify whether the results are from fediverse.

  • OsakaWilson@lemmy.world
    8·
    1 year ago

    Digg.com was the big thing with Reddit trailing. Digg began tweaking the experience toward a more profitable model. I had already come to Reddit when they went too far and there was a sudden enormous migration from Digg to Reddit. Digg went from being THE social media aggregator to being nothing in a matter of weeks.

    Reddit is more deeply rooted, so I think it will stick around, I’m cool if Reddit keeps those who are happy with corporate model busy so we can do our thing here.

  • static@kbin.social
    3·
    1 year ago

    Reddit did not start out as the thing to google, it’s 15+ years old, only in the last 5y I started prefixing my google searches with reddit.

    • BrerChicken @lemmy.world
      5·
      1 year ago

      I actually found Reddit by googling things. I had seen it 5 or 6 times over a few years, and eventually I just went to the main site. I might have even used Reddit in the search before I joined. Regardless, I had recognized that all the best answers for tricky problems that I had were coming from Reddit before I even joined 11 years ago.

    • QuinicV@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      I realize Lemmy needs to get much bigger for that to happen. My question was more directed at how search engines would handle the fediverse. Though I see now that that wasn’t very clear.

    • Fondots@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      Everyone’s experience on this will be different, but I personally started using reddit about 12 years or so ago largely because at that point a lot of my Google searches were already pointing me towards reddit. I wasn’t necessarily going to google specifically to find reddit results, but since that’s where I kept ending up i figured I might as well go straight to reddit. And since reddit’s search function is and has always been trash, i pretty much immediately started using Google to search reddit.

    • QuinicV@lemmy.worldOP
      21·
      1 year ago

      I imagine that would be quite inconvenient… Especially as Lemmy grows and has potentially many more instances.

      • subtext@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I believe that DDG has a shorthand for site:Reddit (without the .com). If lemmy gets popular enough DDG may implement a similar shorthand that incorporates the fediverse without us having to use a massive string. Like if it gets big enough, we may not have to solve this problem because others will see the value in making it easy.

        That’s my hope at least.

  • krigo666@lemmy.world
    52·
    1 year ago

    I think it is preferable to ask other search engines like DuckDuckGo to index Lemmy info. Google is full of garbage.

    • NebLem@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      Use the exclusion keyword for your search provider. For example on google lemmy -kilmister -motorhead will get you only Lemmy software results by excluding pages with “kilmister” or “motorhead” in their contents.

  • qwamqwamqwam@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    1 year ago

    I have seen at least one user claim they got a result from lemmy when searching a question on google. YMMV though. Lemmy is a fraction of the size of reddit, it will take time for posts to reach the level that google starts indexing them specifically.

    • IMongoose@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      I got one. The Google link brought me to the instance though and not the thread. I was able to find the thread though, so it kinda worked.

  • WhipTheLlama@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    If Lemmy becomes a source of enough information like Reddit is, search engines will index it. SEO is a marketing thing, and a place like Lemmy doesn’t really need that. Google, DDG, etc. all put engineering effort into making sure sites with lots of information are indexed and available in their search results.

    • 2pt_perversion@lemmy.world
      2·
      1 year ago

      I wish there was a way to get an entire Reddit archive over here. Realistically I’m still going to have to search Reddit because it has 10+ years of answers to obscure questions.

        • silly goose meekah@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          Google could prevent lemmy pages from showing up in the results for example.

          Or they could adapt the protocol, make their own slightly tweaked version of it and let it die, which apparently often also kills the original protocol due to newly introduced compatibility issues, etc.

          Not sure about the second part, I read about it here somewhere where they mentioned an example of that happening as well but I can’t find it anymore.

  • ghariksforge@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    Depends on Google. These tech companies don’t like new platforms, especially those competing with established ones like Reddit. You’ll see that Google often discriminates against Lemmy or Mastodon.

  • snailwizard@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    Correct me if I’m wrong but if individual admins allow their instances to be indexed wouldn’t the instance itself have some sort of metadata identifying it as a Lemmy branch?

  • RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world
    2·
    1 year ago

    Respectfully: Fuck that.

    If you want to find the best instant rice recommendations on Lemmy, Lemmy should have a functional post search function, rather than me relying on a malevolent corporate entity like google to index all the content.

    Search has gone to shit as the Internet has embraced social media sites, an upside of this is that wikipedia+Lemmy+key word search, mayas accurate as asking Google Bard or bing, and they can be built on entirety open tech.

    • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
      1·
      1 year ago

      Cool rage but you dismissing search indexing is kinda hilarious. It’s not going away and it’s what makes the web. Would you rather have 3 big websites instead of indexed web?