4 ms·

Another reason why adding site:reddit.com is so popular: Reddit's search is even more broken than Google and is useless for searching its own site.

endisneigh 5y ago
Seriously - has no one in this thread used Reddit search? It doesn’t even do spell checking or correction: https://www.reddit.com/search?q=Apple%20ophone https://www.reddit.com/search?q=Apple%20ophone
- butterfi 5y ago
  People are not using Reddit's search, they are using Google to search Reddit.
- jhickok 5y ago
  reddit search is awful. but searching reddit with google is heavenly.
  - ncann 5y ago
    Searching reddit with Google is good, but also not that great. - The date, in many cases, is all wrong. Limiting search results to just last month, for example, will usually still return reddit posts from years ago - Search works great on the post title and to a certain extent the post body, but is really bad on comments. It's really hard to search for a comment especially if the thread is large and long-lived - Many threads seem to not be indexed at all, e.g the daily question threads in many big game subreddits
    - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
      If you're searching for a specific post or comment (rather than trying to find posts and comments about something), https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/ https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/ has been my go-to power search. Thanks to its delays in syncing, it occasionally will return deleted and edited results that may have already been scrubbed from Google or Reddit native search.
  - mcv 5y ago
    Whereas searching anything else with google is awful again. The internet is weird.
doodlebugging 5y ago
Broken search on Reddit is a feature, not a bug. If search worked reliably there is a lot of content that would never be reposted. I've followed several subreddits for a long time dealing with hobbies or skills that I know a bit about and it is usually the same questions being asked and answered year after year. If a user could easily find the response I posted in 2006, 2008, 2011, etc then they would not need to make an account to ask their question. They could simply look at the replies posted with all the photos showing how to accomplish what they need to do and then move on with life. Another reason is that users can delete their posts and their accounts. If that subject has been well covered in the past but the posters later deleted their content then it will not be available for search to find it. I regularly spin up new accounts and have since I joined a long time ago. I delete all the posts and then later delete the account when I feel like I want a new start. Reddit regularly needs new eyeballs so search has never worked. With an IPO in their future, search will never work.
- xerox13ster 5y ago
  Reddit also recently started allowing you to necro archived posts, probably due to the influx of google search traffic.
  - doodlebugging 5y ago
    I didn't know that. Thanks! It makes sense that they would in a way.
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    However, it doesn't just allow you to necro any archived post. I can't determine any rhyme or reason to which ones are open for necro and which ones are sealed.
kccqzy 5y ago
https://redditsearch.io/ https://redditsearch.io/ is the way to go, if you want simple keyword matching and don't want Google AI transforming your search query.

endisneigh 5y ago

Seriously - has no one in this thread used Reddit search? It doesn’t even do spell checking or correction: https://www.reddit.com/search?q=Apple%20ophone https://www.reddit.com/search?q=Apple%20ophone

butterfi 5y ago
People are not using Reddit's search, they are using Google to search Reddit.
jhickok 5y ago
reddit search is awful. but searching reddit with google is heavenly.
- ncann 5y ago
  Searching reddit with Google is good, but also not that great. - The date, in many cases, is all wrong. Limiting search results to just last month, for example, will usually still return reddit posts from years ago - Search works great on the post title and to a certain extent the post body, but is really bad on comments. It's really hard to search for a comment especially if the thread is large and long-lived - Many threads seem to not be indexed at all, e.g the daily question threads in many big game subreddits
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    If you're searching for a specific post or comment (rather than trying to find posts and comments about something), https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/ https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/ has been my go-to power search. Thanks to its delays in syncing, it occasionally will return deleted and edited results that may have already been scrubbed from Google or Reddit native search.
- mcv 5y ago
  Whereas searching anything else with google is awful again. The internet is weird.

doodlebugging 5y ago

Broken search on Reddit is a feature, not a bug. If search worked reliably there is a lot of content that would never be reposted. I've followed several subreddits for a long time dealing with hobbies or skills that I know a bit about and it is usually the same questions being asked and answered year after year. If a user could easily find the response I posted in 2006, 2008, 2011, etc then they would not need to make an account to ask their question. They could simply look at the replies posted with all the photos showing how to accomplish what they need to do and then move on with life. Another reason is that users can delete their posts and their accounts. If that subject has been well covered in the past but the posters later deleted their content then it will not be available for search to find it. I regularly spin up new accounts and have since I joined a long time ago. I delete all the posts and then later delete the account when I feel like I want a new start. Reddit regularly needs new eyeballs so search has never worked. With an IPO in their future, search will never work.

xerox13ster 5y ago
Reddit also recently started allowing you to necro archived posts, probably due to the influx of google search traffic.
- doodlebugging 5y ago
  I didn't know that. Thanks! It makes sense that they would in a way.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  However, it doesn't just allow you to necro any archived post. I can't determine any rhyme or reason to which ones are open for necro and which ones are sealed.

kccqzy 5y ago

https://redditsearch.io/ https://redditsearch.io/ is the way to go, if you want simple keyword matching and don't want Google AI transforming your search query.