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Lemmy wouldn't really takeoff to replace Reddit until it's content is search indexable

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/19004972

Let’s be honest, the real reason Lemmy build most of its traffic is because of Reddit users. But the thing is, outside of the mass exodus in the west that too from the PC era… people discover and join Reddit not because it’s another social media like Facebook or Twitter that people need to reserve their usernames on like a brand or celebrity but because Google Search is kinda… actually absolute trash by SEO and machine learning crawlers.

Most of the world (I am from India btw, hello~) join or even discover reddit because they’re trying to search for actual solutions, recommendations, advice or even reviews by actual experienced people without having to go through another YouTuber which can stem from troubleshooting a router, finding an actual FOSS option or seeking immediate solutions to the recent CrowdStrike fiasco for example. After having to visit reddit every time whenever using a search engine including for education to career advice, I ended up directly signing up with reddit a decade ago.

Recently, Reddit even restricted its search results to Google only in a business partnership meaning those using Bing, DuckDuckGo to Ecosia or even SearchGPT wouldn’t be able to access Reddit answers anymore. Say, if someone searches for how to block ads on chrome as example - Solutions like uBlock Origin come into existence and continue to exist because of the combined community in Reddit that Lemmy is trying to preserve.

Unlike others, am not saying Lemmy would be dead but it would be pretty much like Discord-Telegram or Tumblr instead of wiping Reddit or correcting Facebook. Reddit is not something you discover from word-of-mouth or join from peer pressure unlike other social media which is even truer for Lemmy but because it actually helps and is useful to people.

Lemmy can’t be taking the path of 𝕏 (Alone Mask’s Twitter) but any of the good platforms were before the Enshittification with Facebook’s way~

ricdeh ,
@ricdeh@lemmy.world avatar

As many others have already said, Lemmy is fully indexable by search engines. In fact, in this very community there have been posts about Lemmy content being above other results from more prominent sites like Reddit for certain topics.

I_Miss_Daniel ,

I don’t think I’ll ever take off while it’s called Lemmy. It’s just not a word that sounds ‘good’ in my opinion.

dis_honestfamiliar ,

I tries to pus lemurs, but no one followed.

gnu ,

I think the main problem with searching for fediverse posts is not that they’re not indexed but the lack of a singular tag to append when you want to search for them. To search for reddit posts it was easy because you could put in your keywords and stick ‘reddit’ or ‘site:reddit.com’ onto the end, but now there’s too many domains to keep track of and you can’t rely on appending ‘lemmy’ pointing a search engine towards all Lemmy instances, let alone kbin/mbin instances.

istanbullu ,

I don’t understand the Fedievrse objection to search indexing. Search indexing is the most important piece of what makes the internet.

Die4Ever , (edited )
@Die4Ever@programming.dev avatar

There’s no objection here www.google.com/search?q=Lemmy+wouldn’t+really+tak…

An example fix from over a year ago github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1418

ricdeh ,
@ricdeh@lemmy.world avatar

What? There is no “Fediverse objection” to indexing by search engines. Who told you that? Lemmy is actively being indexed and is showing up when you search for posts.

skullgiver ,
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

Lemmy is search indexable. It includes the necessary metadata headers to link back to original domains as well, something other ActivityPub implementations forgot.

The user base on Lemmy is tiny compared to Reddit, though. Same with Mastodon vs Twitter. The problem isn’t search indexing, it’s the user base being several orders of magnitude smaller.

If you search for topics where Lemmy has a lot of posts (Linux distros, for instance), you can already find Lemmy in the search results every now and then.

NaibofTabr ,

It’s a bad idea to compare Lemmy to Reddit or expect Lemmy to replace Reddit.

Slow growth is not a problem, it’s actually a benefit.

There is no hurry, and no need to push for high user counts.

Rather than trying to attract more people, focus on making your communities an attractive place to be.

atmur ,

Yeah, I think that’s definitely one of the roadblocks Lemmy is facing at the moment. Even though I deleted my Reddit account after the API nonsense, I’m absolutely still appending every DDG or Startpage search with “reddit.” Especially with the flood of AI-generated garbage filling search results, it’s the easiest way to get quick answers from (probably) real people.

However, that also relates to Reddit’s other advantage, in that it actually has a decade and a half of content to be indexed in the first place. The magic of Reddit is that every question has been asked in every way at least 5 times over, Lemmy just doesn’t have that history yet.

badbrainstorm ,
@badbrainstorm@lemmy.world avatar

It does suck, that even within the apps or sites themselves, the search only gives communities.

Like, not being able to search for specific issues, people, or any other topic already posted even within your own instance is my biggest issue with Lemmy not being a sufficient replacement.

Like Reddit was the best place on the internet to go when was stuck with a Linux issue for instance. And rarely even having to post. Just searching the issue would generally get you fixed. Then we could start copying all the invaluable information over here from our communities efforts, and could then be truly free of Reddit once and for all!

Die4Ever ,
@Die4Ever@programming.dev avatar

Like, not being able to search for specific issues, people, or any other topic already posted even within your own instance is my biggest issue with Lemmy not being a sufficient replacement.

The search page does allow all of this.

/search

https://programming.dev/pictrs/image/119c1e3e-19d1-4ea5-b85b-ab3192ae2337.png

https://programming.dev/pictrs/image/acc94091-86d0-44c4-95ed-14d5b3778b47.png

You can filter by type (post, user, community, etc), Local/All/Subscribed, searching within a community, choosing a sort option or restricting to past year/month/week… I think it’s much better than Reddit’s search.

threelonmusketeers ,

To add on to that, Thunder have implemented all these search features in the app.

badbrainstorm ,
@badbrainstorm@lemmy.world avatar

My bad, but good to know. The Jerboa app is almost all I use currently since I’m without a computer ATM. Do any of the apps do better with search?

Die4Ever ,
@Die4Ever@programming.dev avatar

I haven’t used Jerboa in a while, but I know Boost supports almost all of the search features

DisappointedVulcan ,
@DisappointedVulcan@lemmy.world avatar

*its content

Die4Ever ,
@Die4Ever@programming.dev avatar

but Lemmy already does show up on Google results

www.google.com/search?q=Lemmy+wouldn't+really+tak…

themusicman ,

I clicked that link and the first dozen results were Reddit posts and garbage

Die4Ever ,
@Die4Ever@programming.dev avatar

something on your end? my top result is from lemmy.world

https://programming.dev/pictrs/image/5e74bdb8-aa02-4867-8d1f-8515d6d2ff57.png

maybe try opening the link in Private Mode or Incognito

over_clox ,

Interesting and well written (cross)post. If you hadn’t said you’re from India, I would have never guessed. The only spelling error I spotted is right at the end where you said Mask and not Musk.

All good though, we’re (almost) all human around here. That’s one of the big reasons that more experienced and educated people are switching towards the fediverse…

Fuck Spez

threelonmusketeers ,

The only spelling error I spotted is right at the end where you said Mask and not Musk

Pretty sure “Alone Mask” is intentional. It seems to be common to misspell his name on purpose. I’ve seen “Elmo Husk”, “Leon Skum”, etc.

over_clox ,

Perhaps 🤷‍♂️

tinyurl.com/elonroll

In case you don’t trust TinyURL, which I totally wouldn’t blame you, that’s a short link to a ~1MB low quality archived version of Elon Musk Eating Toilets…

youtube.com/watch?v=EAG0dC8l3SU

morrowind ,
@morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

I don’t know OP’s specific background but english is taught in most of the subcontinent and is the primary language for business and formal matters, so I wouldn’t expect any issues with it

over_clox ,

Honestly I haven’t studied foreign languages all that much, but I’ve heard the accents that come from a variety of regions and countries.

The last time I got confused about anything spoken in English by an Indian man, I mistook ‘tiles’ as ‘towels’.

I totally lost out on a tile installation job offer over that, because of a misunderstanding over what’s basically the pronunciation of a particular vowel.

Like, in the back of my head, I’m wondering why this hotel owner is telling me he’s updating his towels, when really he said tiles. He was offering me a job…

I didn’t find out until he got others to do all the work ☹️

Vowels can be extremely important in communication…

Lemminary ,

Maybe OP is fluent and I’ll give the benefit of the doubt but I’ve also seen many developers specifically from India use Grammarly or ChatGPT to correct their writing. Idk, it’s something to consider.

over_clox ,

Indeed, and understandable. Modern AI does tend to do fairly well these days, but obviously no system is ever going to be perfect.

Not even our own ears are perfect. That’s why humans have the sense to ask questions sometimes, like “Hold up, I didn’t understand you, what did you just say?”

And if you check my other comments, you’ll catch an interesting story of mine over the misunderstanding of a simple spoken vowel…

Annoyed_Crabby ,

The only spelling error I spotted is right at the end where you said Mask and not Musk.

It’s a wordplay. I personally call him Melon Husk.

pocopene ,

You mean other than “it’s content” in the title?

over_clox ,

Meh, true that. Hell, I dunno how to properly cross post on Lemmy, nor do I bother doing that anyways so whatever. 🤷‍♂️

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