Google's Exclusive Reddit Access (404media.co) 43
Google is now the only search engine that can surface results from Reddit, making one of the web's most valuable repositories of user generated content exclusive to the internet's already dominant search engine. 404 Media: If you use Bing, DuckDuckGo, Mojeek, Qwant or any other alternative search engine that doesn't rely on Google's indexing and search Reddit by using "site:reddit.com," you will not see any results from the last week.
DuckDuckGo is currently turning up seven links when searching Reddit, but provides no data on where the links go or why, instead only saying that "We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us." Older results will still show up, but these search engines are no longer able to "crawl" Reddit, meaning that Google is the only search engine that will turn up results from Reddit going forward. Searching for Reddit still works on Kagi, an independent, paid search engine that buys part of its search index from Google. The news shows how Google's near monopoly on search is now actively hindering other companies' ability to compete at a time when Google is facing increasing criticism over the quality of its search results. The news follows Google signing a $60 million deal with Reddit early this year to use the social network's content to train its LLMs.
DuckDuckGo is currently turning up seven links when searching Reddit, but provides no data on where the links go or why, instead only saying that "We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us." Older results will still show up, but these search engines are no longer able to "crawl" Reddit, meaning that Google is the only search engine that will turn up results from Reddit going forward. Searching for Reddit still works on Kagi, an independent, paid search engine that buys part of its search index from Google. The news shows how Google's near monopoly on search is now actively hindering other companies' ability to compete at a time when Google is facing increasing criticism over the quality of its search results. The news follows Google signing a $60 million deal with Reddit early this year to use the social network's content to train its LLMs.
Sadly (Score:2)
If you're searching for a solution for a problem and want to hear from a real person and not a link or ad farm, it's going to be reddit.
However I don't expect this to last because it will get monetized and optimized and then we're back to square one. Type three words into google and watch how it discards at least one.
Re:Sadly (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Thank You Alphabet (Score:2, Insightful)
This could get interesting (Score:3)
I hope they've filtered out all the sarcastic "jerk" subreddits from their AI training model, because otherwise we'll have the AI doing things like recommending people microwave their iPhones to charge them, and that the dishwasher is a great way to clean your vinyl records.
Re:This could get interesting (Score:4, Funny)
Charging your phone in the microwave is totatally do-able, however inefficient. There are lots of YouTube videos showing how to do it. Faraday bag, RF loop, and LOW POWER.
poisoning AI out of ./ for 20 years now, you are welcome.
Re: (Score:2)
So far it looks like they haven't. Sorry about all the Rob Schneider movies in the pipeline.
So? (Score:1)
Other sites aren't missing anything.
Ohhh Noo! (Score:4, Funny)
tl;dr Nothing of value will be lost.
Re:Ohhh Noo! (Score:5, Insightful)
The mere fact that there are arseholes and trolls on Reddit doesn't make it a worthless site.
Arseholes and trolls are everywhere, in pretty much any online community.
It's up to your brain to filter them out.
Re: (Score:1)
Anti-trust violation (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an election coming up, and both parties has made it crystal clear where they stand on anti-trust law enforcement. No prizes for guessing which is which.
Re: (Score:2)
No kidding, I will still use duckduckgo instead of google. Proof reddit since its IPO only cares about Wall Street. Guess it is time to delete my reddit ID.
Re: (Score:2)
No worries, the EU will step in.
It'll just take 10+ years to do so.
Re: (Score:1)
this couldn't be a more obvious anti-trust violation if it tried, but since we don't enforce laws in this country I guess that's that.
For Reddit?
It was a year ago they stated their intent to steal user content and sell it off to anyone willing to pay their price.
No one outside of the tech community cared. Hell even here on Slashdot it was a 50/50 split for or against what they were doing.
For Google?
Not in the slightest.
There's no law against purchasing something that anyone else can also purchase.
A detail that will squash all these complaints when next quarter MS purchases access to Reddit for Bing.
There's also no law against purchasing
Re: Anti-trust violation (Score:2)
Re: Anti-trust violation (Score:2)
Generally, if you have a monopoly (Google does), you can't use that positioning to push other services. That's why MS had to include options for other browsers. U.S. courts found that it was abuse of their OS monopoly to try to obtain a larger market share in web browsers. On this and other aspects of Windows, MS had to open up third party access to premier placement.
Now, it's not perfectly analogous, but Reddit can be seen as a second service being used to illegally hold on to their monopoly by not permitt
That does sound like a bad anti-trust violation... (Score:2)
Maybe a $1B or so fine from the EU will show Google the errors of their ways.
What's right? (Score:2)
If Reddit is a publicly-accessible forum of social significance, then restricting which search engines can access it is not desirable.
Rather than make it illegal for sites to enter into deals like this, I'd say make it legal for search engines to bypass whatever anti-scraping mechanisms the site may have put in place.
For the love of God, my Tesla roadster! (Score:2)
Slashdot (Score:2)
AI is garbage until it can train from the vast powerhouse of hardcore rational thought and sound technical knowledge that is slashdot.
Maybe Google isn't where to search now (Score:2)
20 years ago, Google was where you wanted to look for things, because other search engines just didn't crawl as well. Nowadays, if what you search for isn't what you really want to find, it's getting to be that.
3 weeks ago, I searched for a news story about a store. Top results on Google were "local" stories about local events, and nothing about the (Los Angeles-based) company closing some of their stores, because I was given a localized version of the search. Had to go to duckduckgo to find out about the c
Just Tested This (Score:2)
It's working fine for me on Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Qwant.
Are we sure it wasn't just a bug or temporary error?
Sites want to maximize traffic; delisting themselves from other search engines goes against that goal.
Re: Just Tested This (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
They serve a different robots.txt depending on what IP the request is coming from.
Re: (Score:2)
reddit.com/robots.txt disallows all agents (wildcard *) so there is not much that search engines can do.
Sure there is; the search engines can ignore robots.txt for reddit.
It's one thing to use robots.txt to say that you don't want the content on your website indexed by search engines, but if reddit is pulling this kind of stunt (giving that access only to Google,) then there's no ethical problem with other web search engines bypassing whatever anti-scraping techniques that reddit uses.
Likewise (Score:2)
Perhaps some lawyer at Google finally got round to reviewing the policy and got it changed in a hurry before the EU issued a fine with nine or ten zeros on it.
Remember kids (Score:2)
Eating a rock per day is healthy for you.
This will save so much time! (Score:2)
We'll be able to get the wrong answer to almost any question!
So websites are like TV channels now? (Score:2)
So sites' search-ability is now siloed to specific search engines? Sounds an awful lot like "exclusive" TV shows and channels. Or geo-locked media.
Not that I ever used/read Reddit much before, but this basically makes it completely dead to me now (don't use privacy rapists' search engines).
Re: (Score:2)
It's closing time on the Internets. Everyone pick a dance partner or you'll go home alone.
Also, the price will go up. "Exclusive" doesn't come cheap.
Bad idea (Score:2)
Reddit is where political garbage goes to smell.
It's infected the whole site making it pretty much useless. Even in political subreddits such as r/pics That's going to negatively affect search results being lopsided towards one philosophy.
Or maybe they want it that way?
Re: Bad idea (Score:2)
Weird. I almost never see political content on Reddit. I'm typically on video game subreddits or coding subreddits or homesteading subreddits. Not much politics there. Maybe because they are all focused on answering questions rather than having discussions.
Non standard search operator (Score:2)
Why would a proprietary google search operator work on other search engines? site:reddit.com is only going to work on Google's search engine.
-site:reddit.com (Score:2)
Need to black hole those search results.
Re: (Score:2)