How to search the Fediverse?
Reddit Migration@kbin.social – 36 points – A week ago I could just use google to search for something specific and just append 'site:reddit.com' in the query and found the answer.
Multiple subreddits went from private to restricted recently so new posts are pretty close to zero and no new content is added.
If I assume people migrated to kbin/lemmy, how can I find an answer to my question/problem/wHaTeVeReLsE? I'm not speaking about searching for a Magazine/Community, or title of article, but users' answers.
There is this https://www.fediversesearch.com/ and this https://fediverse.observer/list
It's Lemmy specific now, but if https://lemmyverse.net/ adds a search feature, I think it'd work well since the instance finding and community finding features work well.
The thing I'm finding is that when I search for something where the fediverse has an answer, Google gives me the exact same answer like 20 different times on different instances. I wish Google would just list the original.
I believe Google can do this already, but it requires each Lemmy instance to tell Google that it's not the "canonical" version, and which site is. I believe it's possible for Lemmy and kbin to provide that information already, but in my quick check I don't see them doing that yet. Will probably need to be a feature request.
Ref: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/consolidate-duplicate-urls
You can use your instance's search feature. You can search by posts, comments, communities, etc. You have the option to limit the search to specific instances or instances you're federated with. I haven't had a need to search for something niche yet so I can't vouch for how accurate/relevant the results are, but a quick test shows me it works (tried searching for "diablo 4" and "bootloop" via comments).
You also have the option to search by instance via google (eg: "how to xxx site:lemmy.world"). I don't think it's possible to search that way for the whole fediverse, though.
Would this work, say, if one instance were to defederate from the instance you're registered on?
No it won't. You will have to go to that federate directly and make your search.
That's a great question. I honestly don't know. I can't check rn because my instance hasn't blocked any yet (on mobile so I'm pretty limited atm). I'll try to check later, but I'm guessing it's a "no."
It would be nice if there were a way to search fediverse-wide. Being able to type a question + reddit into a search engine is such a good troubleshooting tool.
I suppose it could be worth it to have a datahoarder/archival instance for posterity. It crawls and federates with everything, denies deletion requests, and gets used just for searching/indexing the rest of the fediverse
Sounds like your instance's search feature is more advanced than kbin's is currently.
Wondering the same thing...
Oh, this is interesting. If a fediverse compatible software gets search right, it's gonna get a lot of users. Otherwise, we either have to change the way we search things or search engines might have to change the way they show results.
I don't think it would be too hard to change the query though. Instead of adding "Reddit" at the end of your search query, you can add "kbin", "Lemmy", or whatever instance you want to see search results from.