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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world to c/reddit@lemmy.world

As an example: I was doing a search for the best sesame substitute today. Everything that came up was things like, "11 Best Sesame Substitutes," and I know for a fact that just about everything they suggested tastes nothing like sesame. Just another site trying to get hits. So I added reddit.com into my search parameters and immediately got some decent answers.

I really hate that I have to do that to get anything useful, but there is a ridiculous amount of useful information on Reddit. I hope the fediverse gets to this point as well one day.

Anway, just needed to vent. Lemmy on.

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[-] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 106 points 1 year ago

It's positively maddening. Especially since that Spez has turned Reddit into a walled garden experience now, I no longer want to rely on Reddit for answers. Google is just a mess of garbage blogs full of link rotted 'answers'.

[-] Burp@kbin.social 59 points 1 year ago

All the AI generated websites are driving me insane. They just repeat the same thing over and over again with a bunch of useless text.

[-] TheLobotomist@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

Most of which are AI generated

[-] Jamesbong@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

I no longer used reddit daily. But I still use it (without an account) mainly for research. Reddit no longer exists. It's just a databse of answers like stack overflow to me.

Interestingly I even relay even less and less on searching reddit through google. I use bing ai and bardai since their dataset upadates daily.

[-] folkrav@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I don't have access to Bard (Canada) and I don't use Bing nor Edge, but ChatGPT is usually pretty good at telling me what to look for or giving me an answer that's close to the real thing or has the right keywords. However, it's really often just wrong enough that people replacing a search engine with it and use it for information is kind of worrying...

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[-] MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 48 points 1 year ago

Instead of using a search engine or reddit, have you tried asking the real and friendly people here for an answer?

I did this to prove a point. You can check it out, crushed peanut or flaxseed seem popular.

https://lemmy.world/post/4349618

The answers on reddit didn't magically appear out of thin air. Instead of lamenting about the lack of answers on Lemmy, asking here will get you a good answer real quick.

[-] FireTower@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago

The issue isn't that reddit has all the answers the issue is that search engines like Google show you the websites that have been best optimized for search engines, not the most helpful ones.

Ending searches with 'reddit' works because reddit is the largest group of forums on the web & forums typically are full of people knowledgeable on a specific topic that have good answers.

The quality of returned search results IMO has degraded appreciably. When I search the same question as you posted the entire first page of results is long winded listicals. There's a lot of seemingly helpful & succinct answers in that post you made but no one searching Google will find it if they enter the exact title.

[-] alp 9 points 1 year ago

That's often my issue, forums will have multiple real people with their own opinions based on their experience. With an article it's one author who is only writing the article to attract clicks.

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[-] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 year ago

That's a great option when we have time! But if there's an issue I need answered within an hour, it's unlikely it'll be answered by then.

[-] electrogamerman@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Is there a way to do a web search on the whole fediverse?

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[-] _number8_@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

one of the biggest issues with reddit, imo, is that people would constantly bitch about new / beginner / common / repeated questions, which made it a really hostile environment and unnecessarily harder to get into things. being accepting of those questions is great fodder for discussion, different people to see different answers, more up to date answers, etc. plus it still feels novel here to see posts about things

[-] mysoulishome@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago

Ugh…I feel this. Recently have been struggling with tennis elbow and without Reddit all I would have had was shitty google web results…blogs, bullshit articles full of clickbait and ads with the same 5 tips. Including reddit I was able to figured out what the actual best information was…without the influence of big media bullshit.

I did check mastodon and Lemmy…nothing really.

The shitty thing is the biggest value reddit has at this point is the years of valuable information WE put into it. Facts and opinions ranked and critiqued and crowdsourced. Our best stories, photos, resources. Despite what people tell themselves, we don’t own any of it. It sucks.

[-] Enigma@sh.itjust.works 28 points 1 year ago

It will. I’ve asked stupid questions on here, that I could have gone to Reddit to find the answers for, just to help out with content.

I still use Reddit for movie megathreads. There’s nowhere else on the internet that I’m able to do that yet. And I’d love to start megathreads here, but I’m not capable of handling such responsibility.

[-] Dempf@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 year ago

I will try to do my part and ask some stupid questions as well. I have a whole lifetime of experience in being stupid so it shouldn't be a problem.

[-] TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Trying to do my part! I'll try to ask more stupid questions on here. I have plenty of them to ask.

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

Yep I still search Reddit for answers, but I post content and ask questions here. Which is fine IMO, it's has always been the people that make the good content, not the platform. There were good hardworking people that made those resources, and so it's ok to use it till those resources move off site.

One issue with Lemmy is the SEO problem. There are a few Lemmy search tools, but simply googling something doesn't bring up posts like it would with Reddit. It either needs time, or someone will implement a fix in the source code.

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[-] fluckx@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

I agree with the search engine lamenting. In the past I could just paste the terraform resource name in Google and the first hit would be the doc page. Now it doesn't even deliver me with anything useful 90% of the time.

Google search results really are turning/have turned to s***. Ive gotten better search results out of gpt4 than out of google. And all the "best x" or "best alternatives to y" are just clickbait sites nowadays...

Ironically the web worked better without SEO I guess? Either that or all the content just became rubbish to lure people to add infested clickbait sites harvesting information and serving adds.

[-] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I hate how most search result options are either reddit, or some top 10 ranking website with no information, just repeated product information

[-] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I use a combination of kagi and ddg which is better for most things than Google. But, if I'm looking for "the best ____," I still end up on Reddit. 90% of the review site are SEO bombs and/or AI generated nonsense.

At least I'm not signed in anymore 🤷

[-] adeoxymus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I like how kagi has a button to show "forum" replies, which very often is Reddit:

[-] ThunderWhiskers@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

Holy shit I have never felt more seen! I thought I was going nuts or I had fucked up my algorithm or something. All search results are garbage these days unless you include Reddit. Bring back the information age of the Internet!

[-] Lostbuddy@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Sucks that it's finally gotten to where it's almost not worth using, I saw that it wasn't the same Google when their "sponsored" ad got a friend of mine scammed outta money. Do more than usual due diligence on any ad or sponsored post on Google... Poor results with a little phishing sites on the side.

I've been trying to find a search engine akin to Googles search back in 06-13 era cause the revelevant info that returned was on point most of the time.

It'll probably be in GPT5 but...ya..know...

Subscriptions...

[-] hpucks@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

I don't participate in the conversation at Reddit anymore (deleted my account), but if I'm searching for something I still do the old Reddit Google trick. There's still a wealth of info there.

[-] taiyang@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

I guess if GPT ate reddit, once it gets more reliable you can rely on that instead? Not sure if that's much better though, lol

[-] Bartem@feddit.nl 7 points 1 year ago

Hasn’t GPT eaten Reddit already? Genuinely asking.

[-] Zoboomafoo@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I'd be surprised if it didn't, someone ask it when the bacon narwhals

[-] Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes, every LLM ate reddit but LLMs aren't aren't reliable and tend to hallucinate .

On the other hand, one could train an / (ask a big enough) AI to extract useful info from each post, sort it in big categories (life style, science, mechanic,etc ) and subcategories (life tips, male clothe tips, chemistry, animal facts , car engine repair, bike engine repair ) then Do an internet search to check if there are other sources and use it to judge the reliability of the info and put it in a database that the LLM look up before answering. This condensed reddit could likely hold on a few gigs. Maybe there's a better way to do it but this is the extent of my very limited knowledge.

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[-] Bartem@feddit.nl 9 points 1 year ago

But how can we accomplish the same with lemmy?

We can’t add Lemmy.com to the google search, and I can’t remember all the lemmy community names either.

[-] ArchTemperedKoala@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Maybe just adding lemmy to the end would work.. I usually did what OP did but just using reddit added instead of the whole dot com thing..

[-] alphapuggle@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago

That's my biggest gripe with the fediverse. SEO kinda sucks. I haven't had any luck with adding lemmy at the end

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[-] iHUNTcriminals@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Some code sorcerer could make a website that searches all.

[-] Googlyeyedgal@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

So what’s the best substitute for sesame ?

[-] TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Appears to be watermelon seed or cashew butter when making hummus.

[-] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 6 months ago)
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[-] SCB@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

If you search using Boolean strings you can customize your search significantly and not have all those clickbait false positives.

https://southern.libguides.com/google/boolean

[-] suchwin@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Haven't seen it mentioned yet, so I'll add that you can narrow down your search a little with a site qualifier. So you can search "diy table instructions site:reddit.com" to specifically limit results to reddit only (or any site). I've personally also found a lot of use by using the same method within a subreddit, "diy table instructions site:reddit.com/r/woodworking"

There's a lot of good tips at this link. Although it's an old page, so I dunno if they all work still, ymmv. https://www.ou.edu/webhelp/general/tutorials/google/

I agree with some other posters that hopefully lemmy can grow to fill the boots that reddit is stumbling out of. Although with so many different instances, with different url's, it seems less straight forward.

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[-] PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

CrowdView expands the "add reddit.com to the query" idea to include many more sites, including ones that don't platform extremists for a few more ad impressions.

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[-] Granixo@feddit.cl 3 points 1 year ago

We'll just have to endure it for a while.

But if we just keep talking about our needs and favorite topics in the Fediverse, it will grow and grow. 🌱🌲

[-] TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Trying to do my part!

[-] Bz2486@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Makes sense. What reddit has turned into for me now, is the internets best encyclopedia. And theres no escaping the vast amount of information saved on there, or any chance of finding it elsewhere. Yet

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this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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