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Reddit is one of the most popular websites on the internet, but for some reason, it has the most notorious search function of all social media. Before you resort to adding “Reddit” at the end of your Google searches, check out these tricks that’ll help you explore the site.
Search One Subreddit at a Time
Reddit has an endless number of smaller, more focusedcommunitiescalled “subreddits.” You can think of them as forums within the website. If you’re looking for specific information about something or someone, you’ll get much better results if you only search within that subreddit.
For example, if you look up the correct tire pressure on all of Reddit, you’ll see lots of different posts that may or may not include the answer you’re looking for, even if you type in the exact tire model and size. However, if you keep the search limited to the subreddit for your specific car model, you’re more likely to get the results you’re looking for.
Limiting your search to one subreddit at a time minimizes the number of irrelevant posts in your search results. It’s also worth pointing out that Reddit has a ton ofweird subredditsin addition to the mainstream ones. So, don’t limit your search to only one subreddit if you can’t find what you’re looking for on the most popular one.
For instance, if your cat is experiencing unusual symptoms, and you want to check if anyone’s cat has experienced something similar, you can try searching for the symptoms on r/cats, r/CatAdvice, r/CATHELP, r/AskVet, r/vet, and many others. There has to besomeonewhose cat swallowed one of those tinyJLab JBuds Miniearbuds, and now the poor feline can’t stop listening to yourAI-generated mixtape.
Finding subreddits in and of themselves is actually the harder part. The most obvious solution is to check the broader category of what you’re looking for, but subreddits can get extremely granulated and specific. Fortunately, there’s a subreddit dedicated just to finding other subreddits called/r/findareddit.
Make Use of the Filter and Sort Functions
By default, Reddit’s search sorts your results by relevance. The main ranking factor it uses is how closely the content matches your keyword, but it also takes into account the post’s age and overall popularity. You can change this by selecting a different sort option, like in the following screenshot:
Here’s what each of the sort options does:
The different categories at the top allow you to choose between “Posts,” “Comments,” and “Media” in your search results. While these are pretty self-explanatory, you don’t want to overlook them. “Comments” are especially useful because you can see complete comments that might have the information you’re looking for. As for “Safe Search,” you can enable or disableNSFW(Not Safe For Work) results.
As for filters, Reddit’s search doesn’t give you many options for filtering results—the only available filter is time-based. You can limit your search to posts and comments by when they were posted. Still, depending on what exactly you’re searching for, you can do a lot with it. If you’re looking for very recent news and want tosee the human experiencein real-time, use the “Past Hour” or “Today.” filter. “Past Week” is great for trending topics, particularly when combined with the “Hot” sort option. All three options are somewhat similar to “New,” but these filters restrict results to a specific time frame.
The “Past Month” and “Past Year” filters are great for limiting your research to timely posts. They work wonderfully with “Top” because you can see the best posts published within a specific time frame.
Perhaps you’re looking for advice on how tooverclock your CPUand don’t want to see results from the Intel Core 2 Duo era, or you just want to see how other people useyour favorite gaming mousein relation to newer models. This filter is generally useful for checking how older products and trends are holding up today, like assessing the reliability of an aging car.
Use Modifiers for Advanced Searches
If you want to become apro at searching Reddit, you need to start using modifiers. Much like in other search engines,including Google, Modifiers are specific terms that adjust your search query depending on what attributes you want to find. This might sound complicated initially, but they’re essentially just filters. You’ll get modifiers when you see them in action. For example, I can use the author modifier to find all posts only made by that one user. Here’s an example of all the posts made byBill Gates(the real one):
Remember not to enter spaces between the modifier and keyword, so it’s “author:thisisbillgates” and not “author: thisisbillgates.” Also, you can’t use spaces. Here’s acomplete list of modifiersand what they do:
In addition to modifiers, Reddit supports a few operators. These narrow down your search by allowing you to include, exclude, and specify search terms. Operators are very similar to modifiers and can be used in combination with them, so you can be as creative as you wish. Here’s a list of operators that Reddit supports:
You Can Always Resort to Google
If you still can’t get good results using Reddit’s search, you’re able to always resort to the most popular search engine—Google. I say Google specifically because Reddit is nowpreventing other search enginesfrom crawling the website, significantly reducing their effectiveness.
The easiest way to get Reddit results on Google is to simply stick “Reddit” at the end of your search query. However, if you want to specifically browse Reddit, it’s better to use the modifier “site:reddit.com” before your search query so you only get results from the genuine site. Much like with Reddit’s search, you’re able to combine various modifiers and operators for complex searches.
Although Reddit’s search isn’t perfect, it’s much better than it used to be. If you use Reddit a lot, consider writing down and memorizing some of the more useful modifiers and operators, as they can significantly refine your searches. Equipped with these tools and knowledge, you’ll become a pro at searching Reddit in no time!
