When you search for anything on google, how often do you add "reddit" to the end?

[Stranger Things]

Often!

Especially on the topic of video game questions, like: "how many hours does it take to beat hollow knight? reddit" (which will easily direct me to r/hollowknight threads)

I find that it's the easiest/fastest way to get real answers from ordinary people with average opinions, rather than sifting through 10 pages of random and/or snobby/pretentious articles on the first page of Google. That being said, a subreddit can be pretty hive-minded, but if you're just looking for a general consensus or general information on something, like a video game, then reddit isn't too shabby for a quick review.

 

[You Are Viewtiful]

There's no "never" choice.

Oh wait. I have done -reddit. Does that count?

Click to shrink...

I should do that more often, along with -quora.

 

[Walter White Walker]

That would be zero times ever.

 

[Tavernade]

Only when specifically looking for an active community.

I usually use TV Tropes and Wiki as add-ons.

 

[StrykerIsland]

I can safely say that I have never done this. But then again, I've never used Reddit either.

 

[Waggles]

Any time i'm looking up actual opinions of some product or service.

 

[sionydus]

Not often lately but I used to do this all the time. I think the main motivation was to find more candid opinions on products and services that are saturated with fluff pieces on official channels. Now I'm more aware that many subreddits are hive minds or war zones across some dividing line (e.g., consoles), so I don't put as much stock in what they say without some reassurance.

 

[Brodo Baggins]

I only do this if I'm trying to find a specific subreddit. Usually for tech support and things reddit is one of the first results anyways.

 

[Iolo]

Really never specifically for reddit (I've hit reddit under 20 times in the last month per history), but if reddit or stackoverflow lights up in a search it will usually have several links to related topics, so I'll check those out. I suppose I could cut out the middleman, but there is still the occasional person posting good long-form stuff on their personal sites.

Hitting content farms usually means my search needs to be refined, or use more specific words. This is possible for some topics, especially technical searches. But obviously stuff like "best tv 2021" is now useless, so you have to look for a community. Even for technical searches, it tends to point at some person's blog that is very cookie-cutter stuff, clearly SEO or to used bolster their resume.

So I guess I will use the site: modifier once in a while, if regular searching fails.

 

[FelRes]

Sometimes, if I'm looking for a general opinion or review of something. Usually Reddit will pop up near the top anyway, but adding it will help avoid Quora, which is the most useless replacement for yahoo answers ever.

 

[King Fossil]

Surprisingly a lot. You can glean very useful information from people, and see what discussions spark from those search targets. I never used Reddit up until maybe 5 years ago too.

 

[C.Mongler]

Pretty much 100% of the time that I want to find human beings discussing or explaining the thing I am interested about. Without it I typically just get spam, or SEO targeting slop that reads like it was written by an AI and usually doesn't even actually cover what I want to know. Like for example, if I google a computer problem I'm having, I'll get an article that typically starts with like 1000 words of "The modern computer was invented in 1936 at Cambridge University...blah blah blah...Bill Gates then started Microsoft", just over-explaining background information that no one fucking asked for. Then if you keep reading, it will give you like the three most basic troubleshooting steps imaginable, and then it will finish off by telling you to download some software that's totally not a virus, or just "We dunno, buy a new computer maybe??"

I hate relying on Reddit for pretty much anything really, but it contains discourse from people (with a date too!), even if those people are largely dumb idiots.

 

[Zutrax]

I do it a lot of the time when I'm looking for advice on something or some sort of honest opinion about a product.

I feel like you get much better, more straightforward and unfiltered opinions that way. It doesn't always work, and Reddit isn't the end all be all, but it feels a lot more helpful sometimes than some random article from an unknown website or shitty store reviews that are usually overly positive or overly negative for any given reason.

 

[KtotheRoc]

I've never done it before. I didn't even know this was a thing.

 

[Strike]

Never.

 

[turbobrick]

About half the time maybe. Depends on what I'm searching for.

 

[donpureevil]

never.

 

[Solomon Grundy]

Never

 

[Solomon Grundy]

From the amount of nevers in this thread, I think that should definitely have been a poll option!

 

[Morrigan]

Where's the "Never" option? I hate Reddit and navigating it.

 

[MrCibb]

Not too often but a decent amount of times. For small things I just want people's opinions of, rather than advice for, I do this a lot. I've found Reddit is decent for getting a quick snapshot. Like when I wanted to play a Fire Emblem game, just throwing in "best fire emblem games reddit" pulled up some very helpful threads of discussion so I could make my own decision.

 

[TwntyOneTwlv]

It's also amazing how persistent Google is in showing you what it wants, not what you want. Very, very frequently things I put in quote marks are just plainly ignored, and not present verbatim in any of the top results. It's also extremely liberal with synonymous words, even if they have very different meanings.

For example, I was recently searching for "best looking films" that I could show off my new TV with. Again and again I was directed to "best movies of 2021" lists by blatant content farms, even when adding qualifiers like "best 4k looking movies" "best movies visual looking" "best film quality movies" etc. Really pathetic showing.

Click to shrink...

I ran into a situation like this earlier. We were talking about the super bowl halftime show at work and somebody asked what the most popular hip hop song of all time was. So I googled "most popular hip hop song of all time" and only got "best rap songs ever" lists and "best rap songs 2021". It was pretty frustrating.

 

[ChrisR]

Never, unless I'm trying to find something I know exists on reddit because the search on reddit is so shit

 

[Hrodulf]

Sometimes for product reviews, since most corporate reviews are sponsored (which is why I prefer RTINGS to most other sites) and customer reviews on Best Buy and the like typically boil down to "I casually enjoy this product, so it's the best thing ever" or "I broke it and think it isn't my fault, so one star" or in some cases just people giving a product a bad review because they had a bad customer support experience.

 

[Guppeth]

Where's the "Never" option? I hate Reddit and navigating it.

Click to shrink...

That's why you use a Google search, to skip the "navigating Reddit" part.

 

[Landy828]

Where's the almost never/never option?

I may have done it like twice in a year....maybe, and that's because what I was looking for had to do with reddit specifically.

 

[Croc Man]

Half is the closest option. I do it the old way first, hoping for a random forum post from 2008 but usually have to resort to adding Reddit instead.

 

[Morrigan]

That's why you use a Google search, to skip the "navigating Reddit" part.

Click to shrink...

I mean that even when the best result is on Reddit I hate using it. :P

 

[Iolo]

wait, is this thread just a repackaging of the google is dying thread with a poll added for clicks? good meta-joke.

 

[ghostemoji]

Ever since Wirecutter went behind a paywall and every website in the world copied their style with seemingly auto generated content... Reddit is my first stop.

 

[Guppeth]

I mean that even when the best result is on Reddit I hate using it. :P

Click to shrink...

But you just scroll down and read words. Why do you hate scrolling down so much and reading words so much?

The design of Reddit makes me physically sick, but whenever I need a hive mind to weigh in on some specific thing, it's always a safe bet. It's just like Era except the rabbit holes are deeper and the nazis don't pretend not to be nazis.

 

[two_headed_boy]

The HN thread on this topic is really interesting

 

[Morrigan]

But you just scroll down and read words. Why do you hate scrolling down so much and reading words so much?

Click to shrink...

I wish.
For some reason, I often land in the middle of the entire page, or near the bottom where it's all a bunch of ads or unrelated links, and I have to scroll up to get to the discussion. And then it gets truncated and I need to click to read more replies, and sometimes that still lands me at the bottom of the page instead of where I was. The layout/navigation is insufferable. I ranted about this before here (with a gif of what I mean).

 

[moriquendi]

Never - unless I am looking for a subreddit.

 

[Rosebud]

I always google "thing + something", but not always Reddit. I use Wiki more.

 

[curiouscharles]

I've started doing this more and more lately.

Just finding google search results less reliable while also wanting human opinions on queries more often.

The search bar began suggesting "reddit" at the end of my queries so I started adding it and was liking the results - and now I do it more and more often.

 

[Zen]

I feel called out lmao

 

[Necromanti]

You know...more often than not, recently, now that I think about it. It has become muscle memory at this point.

 

[Yes]

I don't have a Reddit account and they've made it harder to browse without one, so I'm veering off of the service. But every now and then I add it. If I'm looking something specific. I add wiki and imdb, too.

 

[ThereAre4Lights]

I do it mostly for gaming tips and walkthrough-related stuff, mostly to avoid the Quora bullshit and those terrible gaming sites that always seem have a story about Amouranth getting banned from Twitch.

 

[Guppeth]

I wish.
For some reason, I often land in the middle of the entire page, or near the bottom where it's all a bunch of ads or unrelated links, and I have to scroll up to get to the discussion. And then it gets truncated and I need to click to read more replies, and sometimes that still lands me at the bottom of the page instead of where I was. The layout/navigation is insufferable. I ranted about this before here (with a gif of what I mean).

Click to shrink...

Alright that's pretty unusable. 🤮

It's never that bad for me, but on desktop I'm logged in (which might help I dunno), and on mobile I have Reddit links open in a third party app.

edit: the app is Apollo, it's ace.

 

[maximumzero]

I don't, unless I'm specifically looking for something I had seen previously on reddit that Reddit's own built-in search seems to have issue finding.

 

[The Turbanator]

Pretty much any time I look up something opinionated or experience related, like "X vs Y reddit". Most recently tried to do it with tax software and regarding car tuning. Helps that reddit's actual search kinda sucks.

 

[Siggy-P]

I'll do it at the start. Quite often for small things.

I've been looking for a laptop recently. Tying the laptop name and reddit in the search bar of Google gets me more honest experiences and reviews on it then trying to parse through ad infested review forums and the like.

 

[wingkongex]

Every time. The internet has become such a small place.

 

[Ashdroid]

99% of the time when I want to read the experiences of actual people.

 

[Vertpin]

Started doing this recently. It's great. I use reddit a lot more now compared to the last few years, however.

 

[S-Wind]

Where's the option for never?

I never even heard of doing that, and sure as he'll didn't know about it, until today

 

[Super-Volt]

never have. I will put IMDB in some searches, though

 

[Uncle at Nintendo]

All the time.I thought I was one of the few lmao.