Lemmy wouldn't really takeoff to replace Reddit until it's content is search indexable (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[-] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago

I agree that Lemmy should attempt to show up on search results.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

This would hurt Reddit, the business relationship with Reddit (like Google exclusivity), the entire position of Reddit (organic search results) for Steve Huffington as the CEO.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

There is no business relationship between Lemmy and Reddit.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I am pretty sure they meant the relationship between Reddit and Google.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Yup, not sure how he misread that.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

The punctuation

[-] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

Well, it is indexable and is being indexed. And thanks to the federated nature every post is getting tons of links from all over the world.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Why does Lemmy need to do anything but be Lemmy? I don’t want to see it turn into Reddit. I like it just fine the way it is now.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

More traffic plus searchability means more niche communities start to develop actual value.

As in the Lemmy community is a resource of info to the real world hobbits.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

real world hobbits

[email protected] is that way.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Lemmy could absolutely benefit from a bit more traffic. Lemmy is a good Reddit replacement for the largest subs. Like if you're into self hosting, Linux and general tech there's a lot to offer. But if I need to engage with a smaller community or ask a niche question I know there just isn't enough people here to fulfill that. Either that or a lot of smaller Lemmy communities are just bots reposting from their equivalent subreddit.

I'm pulling a number out of my ass but it seems like for every 50 people to subscribe to a community, you'll get 1 really active poster and 49 lurkers. My hometown on Reddit has 23k subscribers it's safe to say it's got about 400 active users. On Lemmy it's 86 and as the assumption math goes, there's only 1 person posting there.

Even if our traffic doubled we'd still be tiny in comparison but at least the small communities would start to come alive

[-] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Reddit didn't become popular overnight. It took decades before small communities were a thing. The internet is even less discoverable than when reddit got popular. People don't search for new websites or move without a reason.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

I mean, it kind of did. When Digg imploded Reddit received a massive influx of users over night. At the time and with Digg out of the picture there just wasn't a good alternative to Reddit (slashdot and fark to lesser degrees) so they had the whole market to themselves. Similarly a lot of us came to Lemmy overnight when Reddit turned off their apps. The difference is, Reddit for many many users is still good enough and fundamentally the same as it's always been.

The fact is though, without search traffic the only way to end up on Lemmy is knowing it already exists and that's going to hinder growth.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

You worded the core understanding in a better way but finally someone gets it!

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

i don’t know about decades plural. maybe one.

also reddit didn’t have to compete with reddit.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

No disagreement, I just would prefer to see it happen organically. I’m not against indexing Lemmy or getting new users of course. I’m against Lemmy trying to be Reddit. After all, we saw how Reddit turned out. Why aim to be the thing we escaped from?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Definitely. Luckily the fediverse by its nature is somewhat insulated from becoming a company with a CEO like Reddit.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I said search indexable which would only allow the OC of Lemmy to outshine Reddit (to which it holds its most pride on) and not become Reddit like adding snoovatars or awards anywhere in my unpopular opinion with valid reason expanded above.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

The trouble is that search engines can't easily scope their search to "all of lemmy" (since things like site:lemmy.world would limit the scope to only a single instance) so they've got to develop that functionality from scratch. And with search engines being proprietary, it's not really possible for the Lemmy devs to help them with that even if they want to.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I think even Lemmy.world would be good instead of nothing where most of big subreddits have shifted as well, once a user creates an account then the rest would be easily accessible.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Indexable content is a good idea objectively, but Lemmy will never “be Reddit”. Sometimes something is just lost.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Again, am saying Lemmy doesn’t have to be Reddit with award system, snoovatars, NFTs… and what not - it’s not about that.

Am not going to repeat what has been already expanded above but Lemmy shouldn’t be walking the path made by Meta to 𝕏 as well like a good thing. When I have mentioned Reddit earlier, it was to remind what it was before the enshittification to understand the reason of its growth and strong position even today. People need to discover Lemmy in their own way beyond the existing reddit users from the comments section.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Oh! I think we agree, my apologies for misunderstanding you and talking past what you were saying.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

To any normal search engine, Lemmy looks like a huge link farm, like the ones spammers (and some "SEO professionals") used to set up to get their shit high up in the search result rankings. There's very little Lemmy can do about this, but there's also not much search engines can do without making search results even worse. In theory Google could add ActivityPub support to their web crawler, but that'll get abused by spammers to the point of making the feature worthless.

Lemmy is not Reddit. It's also not trying to replace Reddit. Lemmy is a separate project with its own distinct goals. Some Lemmy servers are trying to become a new Reddit, but many others aren't.

If you want to find a new Reddit, convince the Redditors to come over to an instance trying to be like Reddit.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I would love to see Reddit come crashing down with Lemmy replacing it.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Me too bud, me too…

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

The best way to accomplish that is to tell people that Kagi has better search results than Google and Bing (which is true).

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Isn’t Kagi paid?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Yes $5 for 300 searches per month. $10 for unlimited.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah, don’t think vast majority of users is going to bother.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

Do we want it to replace Reddit though? Things changr

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Reddit’s path of change is only how to become even worse.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 3 weeks ago

I don't want lemmy to replace reddit.

Call me gatekeepy or elitist if you want, but I feel like the primary driving force of reddit getting worse was it's popularity.

Like say mods actually moderating what gets posted in their dubs to make sure it actually fits, even if you want to do that, if you're a 3 million user reddit getting thousands of submissions a day, it's just not feasible.

Not to mention that rn lemmy is generally quite a like-minded community. And while we do have the .ml problem and had an influx of trolls during the reddit scandal, overall it's still very civil here. We can talk about any subject without have 500 "controversial" comments at the bottom of the thread.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Call me gatekeepy or elitist if you want, but I feel like the primary driving force of reddit getting worse was it's popularity.

I had the exact same experience in Reddit! People complained of frontpage news subreddits being of low quality. I recommended a certain subreddit because of its quality to everyone. Little did I know that more traffic means more morons flooding and deteriorating the quality.

But on the one hand, you don't want echo chambers to develop if it's just the same people you interact with on regular basis. Ideally you'd want differences in opinion and fresh ideas.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Read my post and my other replies on this.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

It's not as bad but can be just as psychotic. I got banned from green text because I asked them to provide proof that the general Canadian public didn't refer to doughnut holes as timbits. I posted sources for my argument, they did not.

this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024

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