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.
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. And while neither Reddit or Google responded to a request for comment, it appears that the exclusion of other search engines is the result of a multi-million dollar deal that gives Google the right to scrape Reddit for data to train its AI products.
Steve Huffman is a rent seeking asshole
The issue is, of course, that people keep giving greedy little pigboy Spez content for free, that he then turns around and sells.
Fuck Spez. Fuck reddit.
Yeah it’s frustrating but I see Reddit getting increasingly worse over time between the platform inserting more advertising everywhere and an increase in astroturfing as Google becomes increasingly dependent. That should hopefully lead to people looking for greener (and hopefully federated) pastures.
The issue is that the FTC is letting him get away with it.
That’s why I replaced all my comments with “fuck u/spez” before deleting them.
GOTTEM
Greedy little pigboy was happy to GET it for free though…
Morally, he’s a pirate. Metaphorically a tapeworm.
I wonder how he feels about the traffic Reddit gets from Google searches and if they should be giving that for free
Google paid Reddit sixty million for access to their data right before their IPO
That really isn’t all that much for the amount of content they’ll get access to and also considering it’s Alphabet paying that.