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Lemmy posts are starting to pop up on search results with Google (+ other search engines) (lemmy.ca)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by otter@lemmy.ca to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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To see the original discussion, you can see this thread: https://lemmy.ca/post/8488573

To open the post on your instance you can go to !lemmybewholesome@lemmy.world and see the recent top posts, or use an app/frontend/ browser extension (ex. !instance_assistant@lemmy.ca)

Alternatively, here is the screenshot from the post.

I also wanted to share this tip for how you can filter for Lemmy posts when searching:

Search using site:home_instance. So if I wanted to find recommended phones, I could go site:lemmy.ca recommended phones. Since every instance has its own collection of posts, you will be getting results from all over Lemmy. The limitation is that you won't see content from instances that aren't federated with yours, but you probably didn't want to see that stuff anyway since you picked your instance for a reason. You can also put any instance into the search if you wanted different results.

Question to everyone, what does Lemmy need to make it easier for people to find content? What are the implications of the Fediverse on how people might find content in the future?

One thing is that people are more likely to get posts from the larger instances, likely because more people are linking to them and opening those links? Another thought was the common complaint about how our post links aren't community specific. While I can search for posts using the method above, I can't search within a specific community like I can with Reddit (ex. I can't search site:lemmy.ca/c/Vancouver recommended restaurants

EDIT: The issues for it are here, looks like the devs are good with it now and someone just needs to implement it:

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[-] sarmale@lemmy.zip 12 points 9 months ago

I have a question, I have posted with my lemmy.zip acccount to a community hosted on feddit.ro, and when I search the title only lemmy.world appears, even tho i didnt post it there, any idea why?

[-] neutron@thelemmy.club 16 points 9 months ago

It means many people are using lemmy.world instance to view your post instead of lemmy.zip or feddit.ro.

[-] Corgana@startrek.website 15 points 9 months ago

Every instance stores what are essentially copies of everything it's users are subscribed to. So when you post "to" feddit.ro, you're posting to the copy on lemmy.zip. Similarly, Lemmy.world has their own copy (that for whatever reason is ranking higher in search) because someone there is presumeably subscribed to the community.

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 7 points 9 months ago

Adding a bit more to the other comments

The post should exist on all 3 instances (as well as any other instance federated with feddit.ro). However lemmy.world is bigger and so more people are likely linking to /from that instance, which mean Google is indexing it with higher priority.

The other instances should probably show up over time?

[-] Teppic@kbin.social 3 points 9 months ago

Hello from kbin... (federated here too)
But this poses an interesting dilemma for Google, potentially to top 100 results could end up just being the same post observed on many Lemmy and kbin instances.