Reddit can’t even make a rich text editor for comments that isn’t borked in browsers.
Reddit can't build a better search engine
61–70 of 289 posts
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#62I've said it before and I'll say it again... I think building better search goes against everything Reddit wants to be. Reddit doesn't want to be Google or Wikipedia. Reddit wants to be a mix between Discord, TikTok, and Instagram. The redesign they did years ago pushed a more Instagram like design. Things like chat and rPan are meant to keep you on the site interacting with other users in real time. Their new video…
There is massive incentive, since Google earns over $50B per quarter selling ads to people who want to buy stuff. Targeting these queries effectively would be hugely more valuable than my current ad selection of increasingly desperate shitcoin/NFT shilling and pleas to buy Reddit gold.
I disagree. Reddit already has more than enough information to effectively target users. Just because they aren't doing it well right now, doesn't mean they need a new approach.
The subreddits you spend your time on is basically just you classifying your interests for Reddit. I'd argue that knowing that someone spends 1-2 hours a day scrolling through hiking subreddits is just as much of an indicator of their interests that any combination of Google searches. Reddit basically has access to all the information that Google ties to get through 3rd party cookies, except they get it way easier since you're never leaving their platform. They know where you're going, how long you're there, and even if you like or dislike the content (upvotes and downvotes). I'm sure their targeting could be improved with search, but like I said in my first post, I think that's a lot of effort for a small improvement.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#63Google is an advertising company. So it makes sense that their search engine (and youtube) exist as a platform for advertising. It really is that simple.
Reddit don't want people to be able to easily find information. They want to make it just easy enough that you wont leave but hard enough that it will take you longer to find what you need. They are all about retention and finding that balance between aggravation and engagement. Twitter is the same.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#64Then ban the people gaming the system
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is only more recently that they seem to have given up. They haven't given up; the OP has a point. The "sites" you are hoping for Google to return _don't exist_. Any website online right now that doesn't exist to drive ad revenue is exceedingly rare. In 2001, there were way more websites that existed just for fun; any tom, dick and harry could open up note pad and get a website online. That doesn't exist anymore.…
Sure they do. It is just in 2001, there was 30M websites, and let's say 5% of them were good. And in 2020, there is 2000M websites... and the number of good ones is about the same (because there are only so many people willing to spend time making personal website). So the fraction is much lower now. It is easier than ever to open your websites, and there are tons of free providers today. Look at any manual aggregato…
Part of the problem is that Google started heavily favoring the age of a domain about a decade or so ago. If you spin up a new site, with high quality content, you simply won’t show up in Google for a long time.
Also, the amount of good content today is vastly larger than it was in 2001. Though you are right about the ratio changing.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#66When I saw the reddit example, I thought of quora. Quora will never be a search engine because all users need to stand out is to add something. and what is usually added is garbage.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#67> However, once Reddit creates a search engine, and once people get to know that there is an opportunity to game the system and create a financial opportunity, people will abuse that system and we will be back to the place where we are now
I mean, you don't have to imagine this, it already happens. People do game Reddit to inject ads, create bots that farm karma then use it to post their content and get them to the front page, etc. The only problem is that (at least some) redditors are incredibly sensitive to this and will go full internet detectives on you. See /r/HailCorporate.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#68I think this article misses the fact that Google polices spam/seo hacks via software automation whereas Reddit (in theory) polices it via crowdsourcing and moderators. These volunteers are super vigilant as they seem to treat the subreddits as their turf or property. If we could downvote google results and share those with others, that would be closer.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#69> I was too young to use Google when it first got started, but according to many, in the beginning, Google had better or more accurate search results. One reason for this was the fact that most of the sites back then were indie websites, which did not care about SEO and money and created websites for sharing information. > But I think all can agree that Google results reduced when people started to game the algorithm…
When it came out, PageRank was a really innovative way to order search results that cut through most of the "SEO" at the time, which was webpages doing lots of unsophisticated things to range well for a given topic (e.g., putting that topic in the many times).
Yeah. PageRank worked because web site owners were linking to each other as a service to the "Surfers", signaling what they think are high quality sites. There is an incentive to keep sites high quality or it'll risk being delinked.
When people stopped "surfing" and starting "searching", the whole mechanism broke down. Plus Google started using other metrics for ranking sites these days.
Re: Reddit can't build a better search engine
#70This misses the mark, Reddit's search is completely useless for any sort of query, and has been for at least a decade. Searching for a post's title verbatim but without quotes will frequently return completely unrelated results. That combined with the fact that Reddit constitutes something like 90% of downtime of top 10 global websites and that their video player is, by all accounts, terrible, tells me they have institutional technical problems.