cross-posted from: https://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~
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site:lemmy.worldin front of your search if using google. You can combine multiple instances with the OR operator iesite:lemmy.world OR site:programming.devthis will force google to give you content only from your desired domains but lemmy.world posts will likely trample the other instances for a lot of stuff.We’re becoming a little centralized (which I personally don’t find to be such a bad thing yet).
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You can use wildcards:
site:lemmy.*
Why rely on google which is going down on reliability so quickly.
What we need is a GOOD lemmy based search engine. Which I think is entirely possible with current lemmy implementation.
The post is saying it’s difficult to discover lemmy without someone telling you about it. It’s not really about searching lemmy.
Thank you.
The point is we hook into existing search engines that are widely used.
but Lemmy already does show up on Google results
I clicked that link and the first dozen results were Reddit posts and garbage
Top two are Lemmy instances.
For me it’s 4 Lemmy results and then 2 reddit results and after than chaos ensues.
something on your end? my top result is from lemmy.world
maybe try opening the link in Private Mode or Incognito
Tried searching this on ddg, not there yet probably because it’s not indexed and cached yet
*its content
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!
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.
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.
To add on to that, Thunder have implemented all these search features in the app.
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?
I haven’t used Jerboa in a while, but I know Boost supports almost all of the search features
Voyager is great.
OMG, Voyager is SO much better! Not sure why I hadn’t tried it
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.
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.
I don’t understand the Fedievrse objection to search indexing. Search indexing is the most important piece of what makes the internet.
There’s no objection here https://www.google.com/search?q=Lemmy+wouldn’t+really+takeoff+to+replace+Reddit+until+it’s+content+is+search+indexable
An example fix from over a year ago https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui/issues/1418
What I had in mind was the Mastodon meltdown some years ago over search indexing.
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.
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.
Exactly and for the same reason Lemmy won’t become as big as it has the potential to become. “Join Lemmy!” “How?” “Go to one of hundreds of websites and join and you’ll have access to the Lemmy content the admin decided you could have access to… Oh and people logging in from those other sites might not have access to the content on your site so you might not be able to interact with a big chunk of users unless it’s on a website that is connected to both your site and the site your site isn’t connected to so choose the site you create your account on wisely! Makes sense?”
Also, even if you find results through searching, it sucks that it probably brings you to an instance that isn’t yours so you have to figure out a way to open the link from your own instance in order to post in the discussion… That is, if you actually can from the instance you’re signing in from!
it probably brings you to an instance that isn’t yours so you have to figure out a way to open the link from your own instance
This is a pretty much a solved problem, the solution just needs to be promoted more, perhaps even on the join-lemmy page.
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.
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.
It’s not really about the name, people are just too lazy to switch app and they don’t care about the greedy Reddit’s CEO trying to make money in every possible way. Last thing I read about him was his idea to put some subreddits behind a paywall.
I was still using the Reddit app but with some tweaks installed on iOS to block ads, otherwise every app that it’s full of ads it’s just unusable.
switch app
Boost and Sync are available here as well
I tries to pus lemurs, but no one followed.
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On Kagi there’s a fediverse lens (basically a filter)
How did I not know this?? Thanks!
I’d rather Lemmy burn to the ground than become famous, seriously watching AND experiencing twitter, reddit, Facebook, MySpace, my-yearbook, and (does Skype count?). I would like to make Lemmy my forever social media. Only time will tell if it lasts though.
Yeah. Last thing I want is to deal with all the anti-environment, anti-EV pro-extremist right wing toxic-macho shit bots.
Quality, not quantity. With too many people, moderation begins to fail
i don’t want lwmmy to take off, i like it rn
Its niches are nowhere near as strong as reddit though. The only reason I can’t ditch reddit is small hobby subs and stuff like that. Their alternatives on lemmy are just not good enough, because of a hideous combination of lack of users and fragmentation.
Yeah clerk.
What’s the point on commenting on something when you know you’re gonna be the only one doing it.
So I guess a few more people would be nice on Lemmy.
For me I want just a lil bit more of the niche subreddits to migrate over then I’ll be content
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.
