Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google is at the moment the one search engine that’s in a position to crawl Reddit and show current search outcomes from the platform.
- This additional cements the corporate’s place because the dominant search engine and makes it more durable for folks utilizing various platforms to entry a superb quantity of user-generated content material.
- This has as soon as once more sparked issues about Google’s monopolistic practices.
Earlier this 12 months, Google entered into an unique cope with Reddit to make use of its user-generated content material for coaching the corporate’s AI apps. Quick ahead to at this time, and the Mountain View tech big is the only real search engine that’s in a position to show current search outcomes from Reddit. Now, this has, undoubtedly, made Google’s platform all of the extra succesful. However what does this imply for you in case you use one of many many various search engines like google, like DuckDuckGo or Bing?
Nicely, in a nutshell, it means trying to find Reddit content material utilizing “web site:reddit.com” will now not yield outcomes on these various platforms (by way of 404 Media). The reporting outlet discovered that DuckDuckGo is popping up a handful of Reddit search outcomes for now, however there’s no additional knowledge on the place the hyperlinks go. Older Reddit hyperlinks, from previous to final week, that’s, nonetheless come up, however as a result of various search engines like google are unable to crawl Reddit anymore, Google is your greatest guess for locating the latest Reddit content material.
So, why does this matter? The very fact is that Google has, for a while now, been accused of monopolistic practices. By securing unique entry to crawl Reddit, the tech big has additional consolidated its place because the dominant search engine. Moreover, on condition that the standard of search outcomes on Google hasn’t been spectacular within the current previous, the corporate’s transfer makes it more durable for folks emigrate to different platforms for a greater search expertise with out compromising entry to a superb quantity of present user-generated content material.
404 Media linked with Colin Hayhurst, CEO of search engine Mojeek, who famous that his platform was blocked from crawling Reddit beginning in early June. Whereas Hayhurst has tried to contact Reddit to resolve this problem, he has, sadly, but to listen to again.
Up to now, Reddit has been vocal about how firms are scraping its platform to coach their AI fashions. Over time, the corporate started introducing stringent measures to cease AI companies from with the ability to exploit its content material with out authorization. In June, the corporate posted, “Within the subsequent few weeks, we’ll be updating our robots.txt directions to be as clear as attainable: if you’re utilizing an automatic agent to entry Reddit, you must abide by our phrases and insurance policies, and you must discuss to us.”
Reddit appears to have gone forward with this and up to date its robotic.txt directions, and the timeline aligns with the current restrictions that various search engines like google have noticed. We’ll have to attend and watch to see how a lot of an affect this has on smaller search engines like google and customers who desire a totally different search expertise than what Google can supply.
