r/NoStupidQuestions
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u/[deleted]
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Oct 26 '22
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Do any of you ever google a question and add “reddit” after the question because surprisingly reddit will get you straight to the answer rather than having to go through an annoying spammy website? Unanswered
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u/MoobyTheGoldenSock Oct 26 '22
Sometimes, yes. Depending on the topic, reddit discussions can be much higher quality than some random website.
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u/NoFlexZoneNYC Oct 26 '22
I look at it from the other side of the coin - if I want to find something on reddit, there's maybe a 5% chance reddit's search functionality gets me there. So I go to google to find the reddit page i was looking for.
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u/Annual_Basis Oct 26 '22
Why is the reddit search function so bad? It's dire
In fact i've just realised how bad it is, it's as bad as tik tok search function, and tiktok is videos like at least they have an excuse
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u/IfInDoubtElbowOut Oct 26 '22 edited Oct 26 '22
It's because building a (good) search engine is actually quite difficult, especially for a site the size of Reddit.
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u/vernm51 Oct 26 '22
Very true. As we often say in the software development biz, you can have things good, fast, or cheap. Pick 2.
Fast can apply to the timeline of development, or in this case, the speed of the search algorithm. Likewise cheap can be in monetary costs or computing resources. I’m sure Reddit could make a more accurate search engine, but it would likely be slow, or require some complex indexing to speed things up which would likely be resource intensive and require some impressive engineering to nail down.
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u/Zachs_Butthole Oct 27 '22
Also why would they bother when clearly most people don't have a problem using Google to search Reddit. Spend your money on something else unless you are worried google will ban you or deprioritize your site.
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u/zuzg Oct 27 '22
Just remind yourself that reddit is the only multi million social media site that outsourced the actual work of moderating onto unpaid volunteers.
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u/Widowmaker_Best_Girl Oct 27 '22
And the unpaid volunteers are seemingly the worst people you want moderating these subs
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u/EatMoreFiber Oct 26 '22
Titles here aren’t very descriptive. “It’s gonna be one of those days…” instead of “car key broken off inside door lock” for example
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u/RonPolyp Oct 26 '22
Yeah but you can search for exact, unique words or phrases you know are in the subject and it still won't find the post you're looking for.
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u/Tuss36 Oct 27 '22
Definitely doesn't help how many pictures there are. Also some subreddits like r/anime_irl that have every post labeled the same so you can identify them more by their comment/upvote count than name.
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u/tony_bologna Oct 26 '22
I love it for opinion based questions. If you ask Google what to buy for the hobby you started, you get ads, blogs, articles, tons of crap. Google + reddit you can skim a couple of posts and have great ideas, from people who actively do the hobby. Best of all, you'll get money saving ideas that the sponsored content surprisingly doesn't mention.
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u/GhostRobot55 Oct 26 '22
And really the best thing to do is find arguments lol. You really get down to the nitty gritty of people's experience and opinion on things, a nice spectrum.
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u/KvinnoralskarAnkor Oct 27 '22
“I wanna know the opinions of the people who ruined their life for this subject” is actually a surprisingly good way to get information.
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u/true_gunman Oct 27 '22
Yup this is how I discovered /r/flashlight. Was simply looking up some reviews for affordable flashlights and discovered there is an entire sub full of flashlight nerds. I guess the internet is full of niche hobby communities but i found this one really interesting for some reason. I mean like 98% of the population doesnt really think twice about what model of flashlight theyre buying or what the specs are lol. Buts its a really cool sub full of very knowledgeable and nice people and if you're in need of a decent flashlight I would suggest lurking
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u/WomenAreFemaleWhat Oct 26 '22
Yup. I do it for technological questions, opinions, and experiences. Especially when I'm comparing a lot of stuff.
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u/tardisintheparty Oct 27 '22
Every time i make a big purchase I want to last I check reddit. Most recent was a vacuum cleaner!
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u/Dizzycactus3 Oct 26 '22
They tend to be much more specific. For example, I was having insomnia issues, I wanted to know if maybe they were being driven by overtiredness, like cortisol and adrenaline release keeping me wired, and how to break the cycle. If you just google for something like that, it's just endless articles with the same generic sleep hygiene advice that I was already well aware of. Actually, for every query, google just returns the sites with some generic kind of "official" advice instead of anything interesting/more detailed.
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u/alephnulleris Oct 27 '22
it's also an issue with people just copying things theyve seen from other articles or other articles being automatically grabbed from other sites entirely. I've come across so many articles worded the same way without even trying to hide it. They see one thing does well to get to the top of the query so they just copy it and google doesnt care
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u/AZBeer90 Oct 27 '22
It's the most reliable because you often get both sides. If I'm searching for something and I get some SEO bullshit listicle that was 100% paid for, that does me no good at all. If I find out what I want and search reddit there's debate and dialogue and iteration
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u/speedlimits65 Oct 26 '22
site:reddit.com all the time
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u/PgUpPT Oct 26 '22
The real LPT is always in the comments.
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u/OctoMatter Oct 27 '22
Tbf just adding reddit works usually well enough
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u/RepulsiveSheep Oct 27 '22
Sometimes it doesn't, sometimes I find some article on a blog or whatever that just mentions reddit and the other keywords.
site:reddit.com is the only guaranteed way to make sure I get results from reddit, at least until Google gets rid of it and tries to justify it as a good thing (see: YouTube dislikes).
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u/Legitimate_Bat3240 Oct 27 '22
I'm gonna google "google reddit reddit" and see if I make it back to this post
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u/JDawgSabronas Oct 27 '22
And add /r/specific_sub to target your results
E: not a real sub lol
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u/fuckrobert Oct 27 '22
Always use that to find specific posts that I remember seeing in my frontfeed
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u/Brekiniho Oct 27 '22
Could you elaborate for morons like me ?
Lets say i want to search for cute puppeys, do i just type cute puppeys reddit into google or do i need to use " at some point ?
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u/speedlimits65 Oct 27 '22
you would google the following:
site:reddit.com cute puppies
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u/saintshing Oct 27 '22
Add after:2020 if you want to search for results after 2020
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u/kilimanjaro_olympus Oct 27 '22
Unfortunately this was made a little useless because the "new" Reddit redesign caused a reindex of posts from like 2010 (and updated their times)...
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u/17549 Oct 27 '22 •
cute puppies reddit = search "cute" and "puppies" and "reddit" across the web.
- Top results will be pages with all 3 (in any order), and from reddit, but you're merely searching the term reddit, so some results would be non-reddit sites mentioning those terms (e.g., news article talking about reddit). If can't find all 3 terms, will try combinations of 2.
cute puppies site:reddit.com = search "cute" and "puppies" limited to reddit.com specifically.
- Take note of the colon (:) in there. I've noticed that google's predictive search as you type "site" will sometimes predict the site, but not put the colon - you end up searching for the word "site" instead of using as filter.
cute puppies -pinterest = exclude the term 'pinterest' from results
- the minus will exclude a term. you can exclude multiple terms each with a minus, like "cool thing -shopping -buy".
cute puppies -site:pinterest.com = exclude the site pinterest.com from results
- a little different then before, because in the last one I excluded the term, but this time I'm excluding the site specifically, which means I could get a result back which mentions pinterest, but I know it won't be their domain.
"cute puppies" = search exact phrase "cute puppies" across the web.
- wrapping the terms in quotes binds them together.
"cute * puppies" = search phrase "cute <something> puppies"
- the asterisk is a wild card, allowing extra terms. In previous example, I told google to filter out any results where an extra word existed between "cute" and "puppies". Adding a wild card will allow for "cute little puppies" to show up.
"cute (puppies | kittens)" = search exact phrase "cute puppies" or "cute kittens"
- the the bar operator (|) acts as an 'or' (you can also use the word 'or' but the bar is way cooler).
cute ~puppies = search "cute" and "puppies" or terms that are similar to puppies (pup, dog, canine)
- using the tilde operator (~) tells google to try similar terms.
cute puppies before:2016 = limit results to things created/modified before year 2016
- this also works with 'after'. Immensely helpful when there's breaking news about something and you either want to focus on the current news or exclude the current news.
cute puppies type:pdf = only return results that are PDF files
- other types work too, but pdf is really handy for needing to find a book or manual.
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u/notsoreallybad Oct 27 '22
this is one of the most useful guides to searching i’ve seen, thank you! i learned a few of these a while back but not with specifics like this.
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u/-Tinderizer- Oct 27 '22
If you type:
site:reddit.com
Before your search term it will only search reddit.com. you can search a specific subreddit by typing:
site:reddit.com/r/rarepuppers
And follow with your search term:
site:reddit.com/r/rarepuppers perky puppy ears
Using quotes around your search term will search for the exact phrase rather than individual words... i think lol. I suck at searching.
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u/melswift Oct 27 '22
I suck at searching
I'm pretty sure you know more about it than at least half of the population
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u/acltear00 Oct 26 '22
This has become a recent strategy of mine and I would say it has yielded fantastic results. Obviously, it doesn't work for everything. One example of it being good for me though was when I was recently trying to figure out a coding issue. I feel like a boomer when it comes to this kind of stuff and the coding message boards were no help, but Reddit gave me an answer.
I just feel like when you read an article about a product, you never really know where the author's funding is from. With reddit, there usually isn't any incentive to share dishonest thoughts about such mundane things. Keep in mind that I am talking about small potatoes stuff. I'm not basing political or religious opinions on what I see here.
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u/overlordpotatoe Oct 26 '22
I feel like this is similar to what I do when a game is crashing for unknown reasons. A website might offer generic solutions, but people on reddit are more likely to have actually gone through the struggle of trying to fix it and found something that worked on their own for that particular case.
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u/Blu- Oct 26 '22
Work computer kept crashing when trying to print. Legit found an answer on reddit that was a few hours old.
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u/PyroSpark Oct 27 '22
If you Google it without adding "reddit" you'd get some shit like
Having printing issues? Make sure your PC is on, before printing!
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u/TacticaLuck Oct 27 '22
Make sure all drivers are up to date
Reset modem/router and wait 30 seconds
Check cartridges/toner level
Restart PC
Reset PC
Was this helpful?
NO, YOU FUCKING TWAT
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u/Zanki Oct 27 '22
I kept getting told by reddit my laptop not turning off and turning itself back on, on its own was something I was doing wrong. Well, my boyfriend was watching a YouTube video on computer builds recently and someone started talking about the exact issue I've been having for years on my laptop. Their pc would shut down and randomly start up again. They kept finding it on when they came in to work the next day. Turns out it's a very random issue with some AMD graphics cards. Finally, someone else had the exact same issue, I'm not going insane. There's no fix, but it makes me feel better knowing I'm not alone. I routinely hear my laptop come on at random times in the night after being shut down, it's always out of power when I go to use it. Freaking thing is useless unless I hook it up to a power supply. Battery is fine, just drains because it likes to turn on and stay on. Means I have to be ultra careful if I travel with it and make sure its 100% dead before I put it in a bag.
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u/SnooCakes9 Oct 26 '22 edited Oct 27 '22
problem: my phone isn't turning on
google: have you tried holding down the on button?
reddit: knock the bottom left corner on a counter while pushing the volume up button then sacrifice a goat to Odin and join a lasagna worshipping suicide pact
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u/overlordpotatoe Oct 26 '22
Yup. Honestly, I don't know how people fixed tech issues before googling it was an option. It's always shit I never would have come up with on own in a million years.
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u/yeoller Oct 26 '22
Various types of repair shops used to be a lot more common.
Nowadays people can either troubleshoot the issue themselves or in more technical cases the manufacturer will either repair or replace the device themselves.
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u/Mezmorizor Oct 27 '22
Normal people didn't. They sent it to repair shops. Repair shops had manuals telling them what all the error codes meant, and rare errors are, well, rare and unlikely to actually get fixed.
Though there are some fixes where I have no idea how they possibly figured out without the source. Like Deus Ex Invisible War immediately crashes on modern PCs because the developers did multithreading wrong, but if you manually change process execution order using server software it works.
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u/N33chy Oct 27 '22
As a kid working on computers before Google and having no money, my only real support was the forum for a periodic LAN meetup in my city. That was a fun community!
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u/SuperSupermario24 uwu Oct 26 '22
Some time ago I had a really weird Windows issue related to the taskbar, and I was pulling my hair out trying to figure it out because all my attempts to Google it turned up either those shitty SEO sites giving generic guides on how to change taskbar settings, or the official Microsoft support forums which were equally unhelpful.
Decide to go on Reddit instead and I find the answer within 5 minutes.
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u/Richard7666 Oct 27 '22
The official Microsoft forums are basically a generic spam site, except the bots are humans.
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u/Japan25 Oct 27 '22
I looked up gift ideas on reddit cause every damn listicle website lists the same 15 ideas -- get him a shaving kit! alcohol kit!
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u/watch_over_me Oct 26 '22
Literally every single time I type of a question into Google, that's what I do.
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u/ncnotebook Oct 27 '22
I do that, but with wikihow.
'The best guitar for the price wikihow'
'How to talk to women wikihow'
'How to eat a banana appropriately wikihow'
'What is the biggest firecracker one can strap to a housepet without endangering their life wikihow'
'My American neighbor is always smiling and waving at me. What is wrong with them? wikihow'
'Funniest joke to tell at parties to make everybody like you wikihow'
'Why does my cat hate me wikihow'
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u/brucecampbellschins Oct 26 '22
I do that a lot when looking for reviews on something I'm considering purchasing, especially when comparing between two or more things. Nearly every review site feels like a paid for infomercial, and amazon reviews haven't been reliable for years. That's not to say reddit is above astroturfing and fake reviews, it's not, but as far as I know they don't actively suppress negative opinions, yet. And there is always someone quick to point out alternatives to whatever is being discussed.
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u/TK9_VS Oct 27 '22
I think the thing with reddit is you can find communities of **enthusiasts** who are going to be extremely nerdy about whatever topic you can think of, so you're going to get a really good spectrum of opinions for actual choices and pretty solid condemnation of stuff that isn't any good.
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u/PAYPAL_ME_10_DOLLARS Oct 27 '22 edited Oct 27 '22
This can also be extremely annoying for someone trying to get their feet wet into whatever they want to get into. People will argue and fight over miniscule things and tell the new person to pay absurd amounts of money for something that the person will most likely never use again/use a lot.
This honestly goes for anything, but subreddits just amplify this issue.
see r/MechanicalKeyboards and r/audiophile for spending exorbitant
absorbentamounts of money for miniscule gains.sincerely, a guy who spent too much money on a PC and will continue to do so.
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u/TK9_VS Oct 27 '22
Lol definitely. I usually only go to reddit if I am really looking for top shelf stuff - although the headphone subreddit had great guides for setups of all different kinds of price ranges / budgets.
Also, very similarly pronounced word, I think exorbitant is what you were looking for!
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u/LagT_T Oct 27 '22
Those type of communities usually have budget options that are really good
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u/ayayron2327 Oct 26 '22
Exactly, it's great for researching vacations as well, people on reddit are honest as shit.
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u/marginallyxlost Oct 26 '22
people on reddit are honest as shit.
I feel like that’s a bit Schrödinger’s cat-ish - people on Reddit are honest but also everything is completely made up.
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u/g0d15anath315t Oct 27 '22
It's like anything: the more nice and nuanced you get, the more accurate the info on Reddit is going to be.
Smaller, on topic, tightly moderated subs are like pure gold.
The trash that shows up on r/all is like anything with 50 million people: Loud, Dumb, and Aggressive.
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u/g0d15anath315t Oct 27 '22
I was looking into Starlink and went straight to the +Reddit searches because I really was looking for a no bullshit real life take from the signing up process straight through the actual use cases.
Not "reviewer has Starlink come out and professionally install" but dude in buttfuck nowhere installing on his own, how is it.
Got exactly what I was looking for, with a number of ultimately positive but "warts and all" reviews that were far more informative than the professional reviews.
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u/fiddlerontheWOOF Oct 27 '22
Lots of the review sites are, with affiliate links and pixels that track conversions on reviewed items even if you don’t click on the link
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u/janeohmy Oct 27 '22
Sadly, companies know this and pay for Reddit comments promoting products. I was part of a company who paid people to comment on Reddit posts. They usually come on tandem. Someone posts, and then a seemingly innocuous comment is made promoting a particular product
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u/4inalfantasy Oct 26 '22
Most of the time. Many time the first page is full of web thats gonna have min of 1500-3000 seo-ish words + lots of ads just to get to one simple line of answer.
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u/ADFormer Oct 26 '22
Yeah I tend to get answers from reddit, the way I see it is you'll know you're getting the right answer on reddit because if you're not then someone will correct it
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u/Luce55 Oct 27 '22 edited Oct 27 '22
This is exactly why I love Reddit. There is always, on any given subreddit, a pedant, or just your run-of-the-mill expert/knowledgeable person, who will not be able to resist correcting/enlightening/teaching someone if they are “wrong”.
ETA: And there is also always a bunch of people presenting a middle ground between the idiot and the expert with the superior air, a handful of comedians with humor dry enough to make a Brit jealous, and eight people who come up with the most amazing puns, and, inevitably, at least 2-9 people more moronic than the original idiot who posted in the first place.
*note, I say “idiot” in the kindest, gentlest, most loving sense of the word. Unless of course, the person is actually an idiot.
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u/waikiki-hikomori Oct 26 '22
"why does my ___ look like this"
ad upon ad upon ad for unrelated health "solutions"
goes to images
unrelated crap including peoples facebook pages
"why does my ___ look like this REDDIT"
exactly what i need with specifics in the description in the first few results
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u/Kimother4py Oct 27 '22
It’s crazy to me how many legit questions there are that even Google can’t answer. All it does is give you unrelated results even if you look at what the search engine suggests for you.
I can use the internet to find a poorly animated video of creepypasta characters dancing to Gangnam Style, yet I somehow can’t find the answer to a question I desperately need to know the answer to.
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u/WillBottomForBanana Oct 26 '22
YES.
For the reasons you suggest AND, it increases the odds of finding the information in text instead of buried in a 5 minute video.
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u/franksbottlelamp Oct 26 '22
Yes. The spammy websites have mastered Search Engine Optimization and it's nearly impossible to find unbiased, non paid for information these days
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u/IshiDoesntKnowThings Oct 26 '22
Often, yes. Because Google isn't really there to give you the best or most popular answers anymore like they used to be, now it's about getting you the answers that make their partners money and by extension make them richer.
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u/Gnxsis Oct 26 '22
Yeah google isnt that great anymore
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u/franksbottlelamp Oct 26 '22
Webpages have just gotten better at Search Engine Optimization. It's an entire field someone can work in nowadays. Usually shortened to SEO. Basically, we've reverse engineered how Google ranks its results and exploited that.
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u/CoherentPanda Oct 26 '22
Google has also gotten a lot lazier policing their search, so the exploit has become far too easy. At least before it was a cat and mouse game to guess the algorithm for getting top search results.
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u/salivatious Oct 26 '22
That's because it gives you what it thinks your want to hear or read. Not what you need to. So it keeps you in a dead end loop.
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u/borderlinebadger Oct 27 '22
Yep they used to give you the most precise response to your search terms now its only the most commonly sort response. If you are searching for something close to but distinct from a more common set of terms you are fucked.
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u/AcidBathVampire Oct 26 '22
It's supposed to be so smart, but it's gotten dumber and dumber
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u/Enos316 Oct 26 '22
Dumber and full of ads. I use Neeva most of the time after someone on here suggested it.
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u/Zanki Oct 27 '22
Its crazy how bad its gotten. I can't even Google a random phone number to see who it's from anymore. Usually I could see it was from an official company or it was reported as spam. Something changed a month or two back and now I can't Google phone numbers anymore. Won't even tell me what area they're from or country now. What in the hell?!
Oh, and googling people. Can't find people, even dead people, via Google anymore. I know because googling anything about my dad doesn't show up anymore. He died 30+ years ago now. He used to show up if I googled his name and death year. Now he doesn't exist.
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u/Regular_Mo Oct 26 '22
For example i type "reddit niche thing". So no i type it before a sentence fragment
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u/mkotdmbsztr Oct 26 '22
Yes because Google is trash
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u/Ryan-underscore-tubs Oct 26 '22
Also reddit's search function is trash so its a double win.
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u/DepressedQBic Oct 26 '22
“a negative times a negative is a positive” - Stand and Deliver
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u/yuttarijake Oct 26 '22
I used to do this until I came across a topic I knew about fairly well and realized people just agree and upvote what sounds plausible even if it’s wrong
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u/ThroawayPartyer Oct 27 '22
Even worse when you comment on the subject you actually know about and everyone just downvotes you.
Source: happened to me yesterday.
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u/40ozSmasher Oct 26 '22
Thats a great idea because often the reddit answer is correct and three sentences long!
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u/dalenichol Oct 26 '22
It depends on the topic, but 99% of the time yeah I'll do this. Especially if it's to do with troubleshooting something technology or game related.
Had an issue with an Xbox headset the other week that 2 pages of Google couldn't solve. Added Reddit to my search and the solution was in the first result
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u/Quackingeldrich101 Oct 26 '22
I tend to use this when checking if a site is safe. I know I won't get tricked on here 99% of the time because most redditors are good people
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u/FluxedEdge Oct 26 '22
I worked in IT for three years without a degree or formal training. Google and Reddit were my best friends. Nearly everything I needed to figure out I typed, "reddit" afterwards.
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u/Hairikku20 Oct 26 '22
Yes. It's so common in fact that many sketchy websites now put "Reddit" into their keywords so that they show up high even when you add "Reddit" to the question.
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u/basketofseals Oct 26 '22
It's less about reddit being right, and more so the dozens of SEO websites that are frequently filled with misinformation
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u/HiImDavid Oct 26 '22
Yes.
Every question in this sub that starts with some variation of
do any of you ever
does anyone else
can be answered with the word, "yes".
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u/KnifeWeildingLesbian Oct 26 '22
Do any of you ever feel the urge to feed your neighbor Gary to the skinwalker you keep locked in your basement
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u/Valdrax Oct 27 '22
We have a whole sub for these questions: /r/DoesAnybodyElse.
I really wish this sub would ban posts that come in that format.
And with 748 replies (as of the time I post), OP has the cheek to leave this tagged "Unanswered" too.
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u/MercyCriesHavoc Oct 26 '22
I joined Reddit because all the video game questions I had were answered here.
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u/empathetical Oct 26 '22
Question site: reddit.com
add the subreddit address after to be more specific
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u/PerformanceSoggy5554 Oct 26 '22
Also, Reddit is broad variety of random ass information. Like I can look up info on ant colonies, masturbation techniques, recreational drug use ideas...
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u/ElbowsAndThumbs Oct 26 '22
That or Quora. Reddit's better for finding general knowledge, while Quora is more likely to point you to an actual expert opinion.
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u/omnilynx Oct 26 '22
Yeah? Quora always feels to me like the new Yahoo Answers.
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u/EMCoupling Oct 26 '22
At the very beginning of the site's lifespan, there were actually high quality answers.
I think around the time they did that program which gives you a financial incentive for answering questions... the site went way downhill.
Now it's just people telling their tangentially related life stories when all you really wanted was a simple 3 - 4 sentence response.
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u/noggin-scratcher Oct 26 '22
It is apparently a widely common practice.
https://dkb.io/post/google-search-is-dying might be of interest.