this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023

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That feeling when you're googling the answer to some technical question, and your own Lemmy post appears 4 results down. (lemmy.one)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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?

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[–] [email protected] 189 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Pretty cool to start seeing Lemmy posts in search results

[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Gotta keep this up! So much of my google results are Reddit forum posts

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

At least now I'm starting to see those results as "Fuck /u/Spezz This post removed by "

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So many Reddit posts are removed and useless. And often these posts used to be the main answer. I don't bother much with Redditt anymore. It's not the knowledgebase it used to be. Will likely never be again.

Some questions I "reask" here on Lemmy and get decent replies. Thus building a new knowledgebase.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That’s exactly what all of us should do. Thank you for being proactive. We need more of you.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hope the indexed instances don't get taken down years down the road, or have some sort of independent archive to consult later.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Hey, does that mean we're finally googleable? That's pretty cool.

[–] epyon22 55 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My guess is it'll vary instance by instance. You have to get on Google's radar to start search your content.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And that happens by people linking to it.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Time to start injecting my posts with SEO nonsense

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reddit programming funny Google lemmy search results...

Don't mind me.

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You know it's a unique question when lemmy is on the front page.

[–] ElBarto 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Google: I don't know, ask these nerds.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Take that, Stack Overflow! Programming.dev on deck!!!! Let's gooooooo

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I honestly think Programming.dev is very well positioned to become a "programming reddit" of sorts. Nice polished sounding domain name, and a discussion platform visually similar to Discourse but with the grunt of the fediverse behind it.

The only thing holding it back is probably a setting for showing local communities by default, when logged out browsing. Whenever that feature arrives in Lemmy then 👌

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Any recommended communities in programming.dev?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I follow [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]

The first two are relatively busy if you're looking for content

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

If you need programming.dev, it’s recommended to set up an account there. The local communities page is very informative.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lemmception

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Please tell me that's how you got here 😂

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

lol, I searched for this post title 😛

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago

I've noticed Lemmy appearing more in search results already. It's nice

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/10909618?sjid=12467677493375888160-EU#zippy=%2Chow-to-control-your-search-history

[–] can 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

While true, I just tried in an incognito window and the post was #5

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

‘Googling something’, as he enters the most specific question ever.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I get it. Finding the answers to super niche questions is just about the only thing I still go to reddit for.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Huh did Google start indexing lemmy?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Funnily enough my own instance has a such a bad SEO that when I searched up my username (to find out what is out there) I found all other instances my comments got copied to but not my own freaking instance.

Oh well. Yes Google does index instances but how well and often is another story.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Some instances disabled crawling, namely lemmy.ca

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But why? Part of why reddit became so useful was its ability to use it for searching. Even though I no longer visit reddit regularly anymore, I still use site:reddit.com on many of my google searches because it gets better results for opinion or explanation based topics. Similarly, I found tons of useful local info from my local city's subreddit. I can't say the same about the Lemmy community, which I only see if I explicitly remember to go to it because the sorting doesn't show small instances.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

appreciateUsefulInfoCallback(true, setVeryLoud);

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe google downranks db0 instance like it does other pirate sites?

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

So I thought the biggest issue with Lemmy and Google's pagerank is that federated content looks a lot like that blogspam that just aggregates content from elsewhere.

Perhaps they're adapting things

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

https://imgur.com/a/bnOv1W7

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Heres comes the internet hug of death ;)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Programming.dev is a great instance

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

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?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your first mistake was unironically using google to search for anything in 2023.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Yeah, all the kids Bing it now!

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Maybe try SearXNG?

https://github.com/searxng/searxng

https://searx.space/

Or maybe something like https://perplexity.ai to point towards where to look

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Happens to me all the time with my Networking, Fortinet, Ansible, and Cisco subreddits, and that’s exactly why I’m hesitant to purge and delete my account.

That and I haven’t found comparable communities here.

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