Hopefully this kind of content is ok here. Up until recently, when I would be searching for some kind of technical info, the top (and best) results would usually all be Reddit posts. I was very pleasantly surprised to do that this time and find a Lemmy post instead!
…It did happen to be a post from me, so unfortunately didn’t answer my question at all, but I still thought it was really neat and wanted to share. Has anyone else seen Lemmy stuff getting indexed and turning up in their search results?
Pretty cool to start seeing Lemmy posts in search results
This could be a big help to growing the overall threadiverse community since growth after the reddit bump has stalled. Not saying growth is intrinsically the goal, but rather that organic rather than force growth (which is how we got most of the users here) is preferable
Hope the indexed instances don’t get taken down years down the road, or have some sort of independent archive to consult later.
That’s my biggest worry, however I’ve been programming for like 15 years now and there are forums I posted to that no longer exist, so I think its just a symptom of information as a whole.
Reddit was the bastion for this kind if stuff for a long time, and now there are a bunch of posts by this guy named [deleted] that have no post body so make of that what you will
Hey, does that mean we’re finally googleable? That’s pretty cool.
My guess is it’ll vary instance by instance. You have to get on Google’s radar to start search your content.
And that happens by people linking to it.
Google Page Rank. I heard of that myth once before.
Time to start injecting my posts with SEO nonsense
Reddit programming funny Google lemmy search results…
Don’t mind me.
Lololol
Take that, Stack Overflow! Programming.dev on deck!!! Let’s gooooooo
Lemmception
Please tell me that’s how you got here 😂
lol, I searched for this post title 😛
I’ve noticed Lemmy appearing more in search results already. It’s nice
Quick reminder that Google’s search results are partially impacted by your location, language, device type, search history and cookies.
Source: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/12412910?sjid=12467677493375888160-EU
While true, I just tried in an incognito window and the post was #5
Incognito window
Oh, my sweet summer child.
I know, I know. I nearly added a disclaimer. Point is I’m not OP and I’ve never searched for that kind of thing. At most they know I like lemmy.
So you know those buttons at the top of Google search results?
Images, News, Videos, etc?
You’ll never guess what new button they’re testing out now.
It’s not just reddit. They’re AI assisted buttons with more tabs for commons searches. Many people add “reddit” after a search to find answers specifically on reddit. It’s also catered differently per user so you might see TikTok or Quora as other buttons up top as well.
Google search results will also slightly vary among users.
‘Googling something’, as he enters the most specific question ever.
I get it. Finding the answers to super niche questions is just about the only thing I still go to reddit for.
there was this movie I liked a lot that I found hard to find people to discuss it with. I talked to a couple people about it on reddit one time, but that was really the extent of the discussions. Eventually I saw the movie again on TV and it got me wondering if there was anymore more info about it, like theories or whatever. So I Google it and come across this thread that looked interesting, and as I’m reading through I thought that this person knows what they’re talking about and has some good ideas. Eventually I realize it was my own comments I was looking at from before, I just didn’t recognize them at first. I’m actually retarded
Wow this is so insightful this guy must be really cool and smart
Wait a minute…
Is it Operation Sandman ?
Probably best not to use an ableist slur
I’ve noticed that the quality of the questions and answers on technical topics has gotten noticeably worse since July. Not surprising these types of users would move away from Lemmy first. On the Ubuntu subreddit I’ve noticed a relative increase in confidently incorrect answers.
If it weren’t bad for everyone overall, I would support intentionally giving wrong solutions on Reddit. As it is, I simply only go there now for the pre-lemmy knowledge as many do, though as Lemmy starts getting a deeper knowledge base I expect that will slowly change, I find the quality of both the questions and answers on Lemmy to be much greater nine times out of ten.
Ya, it still has a backlog of great answers to questions from the past, but hopefully as new questions are asked and new issues are brought up, Lemmy can grow that backlog as well.
Programming.dev is a great instance
Yessir
One time I was looking up a question related to obsidian MD, only to find out there was a post about my exact issue, I open it, I’ve already upvoted it. I read closer, it’s my own post from 6mo ago.
Heres comes the internet hug of death ;)
That’s huge! Makes me realize that there’s not really a way for anybody to know that a particular result is from Lemmy/the fediverse by looking at it, especially with the weird TLDs people use. I wonder if Google will eventually start recognizing ActivityPub clients differently?
Your first mistake was unironically using google to search for anything in 2023.
Yeah, all the kids Bing it now!
Nah, the cool kids Quack it.
I just bang my head on the table and save a step.
If you’re referring to DuckDuckGo, it’s just Bing under the hood.
Right, but the hood is so shiny. :)
I’ve tried to confirm, but can’t find any info on that. Care to provide a source?
You can also search Bing and DDG side by side in private browsing sessions.
https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/
