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Reddit is taking over Google

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331–340 of 349 posts

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#331
post #148
post #29

To this day, my most public contribution to reddit is that I wrote the code to put the title of the post in the URL. That was done specifically for SEO purposes. It was pretty much the only SEO optimization we ever did (along with a few DOM changes), because shortly after that, Google basically dedicated engineering effort specifically to crawling reddit. So much so that we lost the "crawl rate" button in our SEO adm…

Nowadays the reddit engineers perverted the link system for old reddit users. New reddit users link to posts using a syntax that for old reddit users returns the submit a new post page. Also, just to twist the knife further, old reddit users can't open full resolution images hosted on reddit anymore. Click a link and you get thrown to this url: https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/media/nice_hat/?url=...

Old.reddit doesn’t work anymore on private browsing without log-in. This was the last staw for me, I deleted 3 15-year old accounts at the beginning of 2024, now I don’t even visit it by mistake.

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#332
post #29

To this day, my most public contribution to reddit is that I wrote the code to put the title of the post in the URL. That was done specifically for SEO purposes. It was pretty much the only SEO optimization we ever did (along with a few DOM changes), because shortly after that, Google basically dedicated engineering effort specifically to crawling reddit. So much so that we lost the "crawl rate" button in our SEO adm…

It's mind-boggling to me that Google didn't create a spec to work with special partners whereby they could get syndicated data in a format that was easy to ingest, and easy for their partners to produce. Lighting dollars on fire just to serve up pages to Googlebot, when you could just periodically dump a journal of updates to Google, is just crazy imo. On edit: if only there were some way to do some kind of really si…

Google implemented ARC for their partner sites, Advanced Rsomthing Cache, I believe. It was a way for google to consume popular websites and host them optimized for mobile (android) devices. It was all the rage for a while, because, I think, Google greatly favored ARC sites/pages for a while. Eventually they discontinued it, because, well Google.

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#333
post #318
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is you can't trust it: people can modify that part of the URL arbitrarily and so you think the URL has meaning, but it doesn't.

I'd still rather be saved from a bad click 99% of the time, rather than the 0% of the time an unlabeled ID link will give you.

FWIW there was a good discussion of this on r/admin last month.

https://www.reddit.com/r/admin/comments/1c6lp0z/link_slug_po...

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#334
post #16

I still prefer reddit most of the time. Front page (default) subs are highly manipulated (especially anything news, politics, current things etc.) but for hobbies, video games, and sports it's still the best site. Video game discusssions especially because unlike Discord every tip, guide, and walkthrough is archived and searchable. And for sports mostly because it's _insane_ how quickly you get highlights and videos.…

What strikes me about the popular feed now is how negative it's become. Almost every post is designed to provoke outrage in some way, which I suppose guarantees more participation. It's becoming a poison, so I spend more time on this site where the reactions to events are much more measured.

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#335
post #16

I still prefer reddit most of the time. Front page (default) subs are highly manipulated (especially anything news, politics, current things etc.) but for hobbies, video games, and sports it's still the best site. Video game discusssions especially because unlike Discord every tip, guide, and walkthrough is archived and searchable. And for sports mostly because it's _insane_ how quickly you get highlights and videos.…

> I can't ready my city's sub because it's always the same tired politics posts instead of "what are some good restaurants" or "here is a photo of a building I've never seen before". I find it funny, that I am completely opposite. I would very much prefer the local news/politics/crime, as this directly affects me and my life - e.g. don't go to the highway today, because protestors block it. Vs. the boring similar pho…

For example, my city's subreddit is awash with political posts related to state-level policies and reactions to Roe vs. Wade. There's very little about the culture of the town. It has a definite mission to persuade people toward outrage.

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#336
post #270
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays the reddit engineers perverted the link system for old reddit users. New reddit users link to posts using a syntax that for old reddit users returns the submit a new post page. Also, just to twist the knife further, old reddit users can't open full resolution images hosted on reddit anymore. Click a link and you get thrown to this url: https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/media/nice_hat/?url=...

I just find it hilarious that old.reddit is one version, new.reddit is another, and www.reddit is yet another.

yeah new.reddit is the only one that exposes the notification bell so you can subscribe to post replies, apparently. WTF

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#337
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Banned from my home countries sub because I dared posting to another sub. Literally bot based autobans by monitoring user for ANY participation in subs the mods don’t approve of. That’s what counts as moderation these days on Reddit. Parts of Reddit are still ok but others are utter trashfires presided over by power tripping lunatics that have taken over the asylum

Throwaway accounts are the greatest I have an account all about some particular vice and honestly its been well received There are VERY FEW ad hominem attacks. Its like people treat you better when they know they cant hurt you in comparison to people that try to have a post history tip toeing around topics and subs. I think it’s symptomatic of what you see with other extreme personalities, they wind up getting so man…

I wanted to post in a particular parenting sub, having difficulties with being a dad, and wanting to chat about it to others. I didn't want to use my main reddit account, but new accounts are banned from posting to that sub.

So throwaways don't really work for all purposes.

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#338
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quora's top answer is always an AI chatbot IIRC. It is very annoying compared to what it used to be...I still miss Yahoo Answers

I can't figure out why Quora does that. sticking in obvious AI summaries, to me, seems to devalue their brand.

I think it's on brand for Adam D'Angelo, just not good tho

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's got to be Reddit's biggest challenge. The default subreddits are ultra-useless, ultra-high noise. Quality of discussion is on par with YouTube comments (ie abyssmal) A lot of the individual, smaller, focused subreddits are extremely valuable. But, nobody would know it at first glance.

> The default subreddits are ultra-useless, ultra-high noise I have a really, really, really hard time believing that the ultra-uselessness of the default subreddits is anything other than a _deliberate_ attempt on the part of the reddit admins to make them that way. Or, to be more direct - I do not believe at _all_ that the political slant of reddit's main subs is organic.

Nah, that makes no sense to me. Why would they do that on purpose?

I think this one is pretty Occam's Razor-friendly. Any high volume free-for-all discussion (meatspace or online) is guaranteed to devolve into a useless cacophony.

    Or, to be more direct - I do not believe at _all_ 
    that the political slant of reddit's main subs is organic.
Feels like another discussion entirely?

Re: Reddit is taking over Google

#340
post #76
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's presumably because very few people will make new websites on subjects when they can make a youtube channel instead. The web has been hollowing out for a while, AI has just massively increased the speed of that process recently.

I don't get how people have so much time to watch amateur YouTube.

To be honest, I’d rather spend my limited free time watching amateur YouTube than watching a show on Netflix. No value judgement on either from my part, just my preference. As the parent of a special needs toddler with a busy work life, my personal free time is extremely limited, but when I do have it, it’s YouTube for me.
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