r/changelog • u/anon-axolotl • Sep 07 '21
What’s Up with Reddit Search, Episode III: The Front End Awakens
TL;DR
We’re testing an updated front-end design for the web that includes a new community search pill, a Safe Search toggle, crisis resources, and an updated UI. Currently, these updates aren’t rolled out to 100% of redditors, so you may not see them yet. If you do, try searching for something and let us know what you think!
Hi there redditors,
The Search team is here again with updates on our progress improving Reddit’s search function! To learn about the work that’s already been done, check out our previous updates:
We’re here to talk about changes we prioritized based on your feedback, and the first set of improvements to the front-end design for the web. Read on to learn more.
Default search within communities
You asked and we listened—now when you’re visiting a community, the default search will be within that community instead of all of Reddit. You can also easily search all of Reddit by simply deleting the community pill shown below. Here’s what it looks like:
An updated design on the web
To make it easier to find what you’re looking for, we’ve simplified the two tabs on search result pages to Posts and Communities and People. (Reminder, this is still in experiments so not everyone will see it right now.) Since past data has shown that the majority of people are searching for posts, the new design prioritizes them, but the two-column layout still makes it easy to find communities and people.
A new Safe Search toggle for NSFW content
If someone isn’t interested in Not Safe for Work (NSFW) content, they shouldn’t see it in their search results. To make it easier to control whether NSFW content shows up in your search results, we’ve added a new Safe Search toggle on the search results pages of redditors who have confirmed that they’re over 18. (Just like before, any redditors who have confirmed that they’re under 18 won’t see the toggle or any content tagged as NSFW.)
Here’s what it looks like:
All new searches will default to safe search, which means anything tagged as NSFW won’t show up in the results. For those who have confirmed they’re over 18 and are looking for NSFW content, the toggle lets you turn Safe Search off and see a mix of SFW and NSFW results. If you haven't searched for 30 minutes or more, the toggle resets to the default state
Providing resources for those who may be in need
Reddit has partnered with Crisis Text Line since 2019 to provide redditors with 24/7 support from trained Crisis Counselors. Previously, redditors could only find these resources if a concerned redditor reported something that worried them. Now, those using Reddit search to look for things that signal they may be seeking support for themselves or others will see relevant Reddit communities where they can get support, as well as information about Crisis Text Line and other off-platform support resources.
And a special thank you on this project goes out to the moderators over at r/SuicideWatch, whose expert advice and guidance was a major influence on how we reach out to people with these resources.
And there’s much more to come…
This is the very first iteration of many more improvements we’ll be making to the search functionality and UI, so keep a lookout for even more improvements to the desktop designs. As we refine and update designs on the web, the new experience will also be applied to the iOS and Android apps.
And don’t worry, there are more improvements to search relevance coming too. As part of these ongoing experiments, we tested boosting posts redditors had recently visited to the top of their search results. However, based on the experiment results, recently visited posts aren’t always what redditors are looking for. Over the next quarter we’ll look into possibly re-implementing this idea as a different feature that better matches searcher intent.
New experiments will roll out soon and we’ll share the results with you as we learn more.
As always, leave any questions, comments, or feedback below!
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u/haykam821 Sep 07 '21
However, based on the experiment results, recently visited posts aren’t always what redditors are looking for. Over the next quarter we’ll look into possibly re-implementing this idea as a different feature that better matches searcher intent.
Would it not make sense to be able to search saved posts?
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u/baconbits492 Sep 08 '21
We agree! We’ve got some projects in the works that you may be interested in. Stay tuned!
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u/fanfan64 Sep 11 '21
Unrelated but i'd love to have the ability to search in my old comments, that would increase my knowledge retention/reusability on this website
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u/Khyta Sep 16 '21
Not a native reddit function but you could use https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/
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u/MajorParadox Sep 08 '21
Awesome! Any plans to incorporate flairs into the subreddit search? That would be very useful
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u/baconbits492 Sep 08 '21
So you can still search for flairs from the subreddit itself. Like this Including it and making it a better integration with the top level search bar or within subreddit searches themselves on the search screen is something that we might look into in the future.
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u/MajorParadox Sep 08 '21
Yeah, most people don't know they can search like that, but even if they do, they have to type it by hand and make sure they type it correctly.
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u/schizoHD Sep 08 '21
Wait, did they remove that feature? Cause you can do that with the old search
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u/MajorParadox Sep 08 '21
You can, but you have to type it by hand. I was asking about if there were plans to build in something so you don't need to type it manually.
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u/iamonlyoneman Sep 07 '21
ok but (and this is a serious question) is the search engine still rubbish for actually finding results on reddit like its historical reputation says it is?
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u/anon-axolotl Sep 07 '21
Well, test it out and let us know what you think. We’ve invested so much in search this year to make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for. But this is a big job, and it’ll take some time. Stay tuned for more updates. There will be many many more episodes to come.
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u/500scnds Sep 08 '21
I just tested it out, and the 11 year old bug is still there.
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u/anon-axolotl Sep 08 '21
Oh no, we just checked and it works for us. What platform are you seeing that on?
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u/500scnds Sep 09 '21
I assume it's an issue with your backend, because it simply doesn't work everywhere, be it New Reddit, Old Reddit, official app, unofficial app, iOS, Android, beta tester, non-beta tester, wi-fi, data. I was under the impression that you used Amazon's CloudSearch, but other sites like NatGeo does the same and doesn't have the limitation, so I have no idea what you are doing wrong to fail to process queries with colons as opposed to actual operators.
There's just no results for terms that otherwise exist like
t:400bc,a:t5hh:mm:ssormatthew 5:44and I can throw up the screenshots if you like.0
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u/Xenc Sep 07 '21
Thanks for the updates. There are a couple of suggestions here that would be useful:
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u/Kaitaan Sep 08 '21
Date range search is something we've spoken about a lot. One of the issues with implementing that, however, is that we rely really heavily on caching search results, and changes to queries blow that cache. If we want to do date-range searching, we have to get creative about how we can handle that without clobbering the search engine backend. A search for "cat" can be executed once, and the same results served up for all the users who search for "cat" in the next minute (or ten minutes; or hour; or however long we decide to cache those results). A search for "cat, but between Nov 5 and Nov 7" means we need to reissue the search and can't leverage the cached results at all. That's not really a big deal when you're only dealing with a few searches, but at the scale that Reddit users search (and the scale we expect as we make relevance improvements), it just doesn't work.
The consistency problem is precisely why we've created a new team! It's mentioned in the previous post (https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/osrhwp/whats_up_with_reddit_search_episode_ii_the_rise/) under the Design Updates section. Instead of having to coordinate search changes across separate iOS, Android, mobile web, and web client teams, we have one team with engineers across those disciplines to work with so we can keep things in sync. That team is still getting staffed up, but they've made killer progress already!
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u/Ohsin Sep 08 '21
Instead of keyword based search then any chance to fetch submissions between a date range for communities? There are small communities with wealth of stuff but due hard limit on scrolled results there is currently no way to look into what was on frontpage on certain day or week.
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u/F0REM4N Oct 13 '21 edited Oct 13 '21
Date range search would be beneficial in looking back at historical events. For example, it would be beneficial to be able to pull up posts from specific subreddits for the week of 9/11 to see how people reacted in real time. Reddit is becoming historically significant as it ages.
It's been my number one wanted feature for ages now, and it's disappointing to hear there are some major hurdles. Hopefully someday you are able find a solution. Keep up the great work!
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u/admirelurk Sep 07 '21
When are you going to roll back all the dark patterns in your front end?
You deliberately make it frustrating to browse Reddit on a mobile browser, even blocking certain subreddits entirely. Just to force people to install your shitty, telemetry-loaded app.
You often can't even read all comments in a thread; they're locked away until you make an account.
Privacy options are set to track everything by default.
Ads are designed to look almost identical to real content.
See also https://ognjen.io/reddits-disrespectful-design/
At some point I hope you realize that the software you write doesn't improve people's experience at all. It only forces people further into Reddit's walled garden, where they are surveilled and sold to the highest bidder.
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u/cleeder Sep 07 '21
At some point I hope you realize that the software you write doesn't improve people's experience at all. It only forces people further into Reddit's walled garden, where they are surveilled and sold to the highest bidder.
So it's working as intended then?
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u/Kaitaan Sep 08 '21
While I can appreciate that you disagree with some of the policy and design decisions that have been made by the company at large, none of this has anything to do with the search product which this post is explicitly talking about.
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Sep 08 '21
[deleted]
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u/Newphonewhodiss9 Oct 07 '21
doesn’t even matter they gimp everything by doing it on the main. can’t avoid all filtering in apollo.
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u/lazydictionary Sep 08 '21
They still aren't profitable and need to make money before they go public. That's why they've been mimicking as many social media platforms as they can.
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u/roionsteroids Sep 08 '21
leave any feedback below!
https://www.reddit.com/wiki/search is that still fully accurate? maybe make that easier to stumble upon (vast majority of people complaining about the search seem to be entirely unaware of AND OR NOT etc queries).
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u/ekolis Sep 07 '21
These changes look really nice! But will r/suicidewatch be recommended even to users who've been banned from that sub? Or will something else be recommended in its place?
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u/anon-axolotl Sep 08 '21
The Crisis Textline resources (post and wiki) aren’t part of r/SuicideWatch, so users who have been banned from that community can still access them!
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u/iLewdWaifus Sep 16 '21 edited Sep 16 '21
We desperately need more ways to help Small Communities Grow. Like, Instead of showing Communities that are NOT RELATED to what they searched in the bar first, Show the communites that ARE related to spelling of the Sub Reddit.
Also, there's 0 incentive for people to post in small Subreddits. They'd rather farm karma in big subs. Can we have something to combat this?
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u/403and780 Sep 07 '21
Appears that this has absolutely no improved search in mind for old, eh? That’s such a big shocking surprise.
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u/Kaitaan Sep 08 '21
A lot of the things the Search Relevance team is working on is platform agnostic and would apply to "new" reddit, old reddit, mobile web, and native apps.
That said, nothing is explicitly targeting old Reddit exclusively.
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u/roionsteroids Sep 08 '21
Doesn't everything mentioned in the OP (in subreddit search, nsfw toggle etc) already exist on old reddit for like a decade?
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u/baconbits492 Sep 08 '21
You’re not wrong. Parts of these features have been available on old reddit or known to power users for a while. These updates make this sort of functionality more discoverable and available to new users, or users that don’t know all the minutiae of Reddit.
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u/DFGdanger Sep 09 '21
Just clicking in the search bar showed me 1 trending post and 4 promoted posts. None from the community I was in (and the label next to the search bar implies they would be limited to). I hate it.
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u/QueeLinx Sep 16 '21
Sub I mod, r/uscensus20, may have become something of an academic resource. Now I know Reddit isn't about developing and maintaining research databases. But please keep in mind the possibility that a Redditor consults a librarian for help searching Reddit.
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u/aslfingerspell Oct 15 '21 edited Oct 15 '21
How can I get the search results to be back in the old format?
Just yesterday using Reddit's search function led to the results list looking like a normal feed or list of posts (i.e. frontpage, or someone's list of posts on their profile), with the 3 formatting options of Card, Classic, and Compact format. Now, the format is completely changed and is stuck on a Card-like format. Not only does each entry take up more vertical space, the margins on this new search page format are also narrower, which means more scrolling.
In addition, the upvote/downvote buttons are missing from the results so I can't vote directly from a list of search results. The number of upvotes is in a smaller text and in a different location than normal (on lower left corner of each box rather than directly to the left between the arrows), and it doesn't show which awards a post got. It just says the number of awards.
The search results also don't have the expander-arrows that allow me to see a full-sized picture or text post right from the search results.
It's very frustrating and I hope this is just some new feature I can opt out of or change back.
For reference on what I'm talking about, compare the way a page looks when you filter by flair: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/?f=flair_name%3A%22Resource%22
Then look at how it looks in a search result: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/search/?q=resource&restrict_sr=1&sr_nsfw=
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u/the-corinthian Oct 29 '21 edited Oct 29 '21
- I hate Safe Search re-toggling itself. Safe search is enabled by default in your user settings, why would I take the time to disable Safe Search and save it to my User Settings if I wanted it on? You misunderstand users entirely.
- I dislike not having the ability to upvote from the search window instead of having to open the post first. It's not like this in the regular feed for a reason. The dichotomy of feeds is unwanted.
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u/Marc123123 Feb 11 '22
Why don't give users a choice if they want to have a filter disabled permanently.
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u/Crisptain Sep 07 '21
Why though?