Major Search Engines Blocked by Reddit Except for Google
Earlier, various search engines indexed Reddit content which benefited various large businesses and startup companies for a good period. However, Reddit has now blocked all other search engines from indexing its content except Google. The reason behind this move is that Reddit is planning to charge companies for using its crucial data to train AI systems.
In fact, in February, there was news in the market that Google paid Reddit more than $60M a year to access large datasets and train its AI models.
A lot of discussion has been going around in SEO and digital marketing communities regarding this move.
Reddit Blocks Several Search Engines
As per a source, Reddit has finally updated its robots.txt file and blocked a few web crawlers from accessing recent posts and content.
Google, of course, is not a part of the list due to a deal that permits it to access Reddit’s content to train artificial intelligence systems.
404 Media even stated you might not find your content indexed on Google even using the site query, i.e. “site:reddit.com” for Bing, DuckDuckGo, Mojeek, Qwant, or any other search engine that doesn’t rely on Google’s indexing. At the moment, DuckDuckGo returns seven results when searching Reddit; however, it doesn’t explain where the links lead or why.
Search engines that purchase their results from Google are the lone exception.
In fact, Tim Rathschmidt also released a statement that the invisibility of Reddit results on non-Google search engines is nowhere connected to the past deal.
Google is the Exceptional Case
At the moment, only Google is the major search engine that has access to display Reddit results using site queries. This makes it an exceptional option and great news for various Google users.
Read More: Will AI and Search Generative Experience (SGE) Transform the Search Market?
Why is This Information a Major Concern?
All those people who used to add their search queries on “Reddit” to find answers from real people will now need to utilize Google or search engines that leverage Google’s data in order to accomplish this.
Also, SEO professionals and marketers might find it challenging to track and study conversations on Reddit with this change as it is one of the largest online discussion forums.
Many publications and companies have also been filing cases against OpenAI and a few other companies to avoid using public information for AI training.
But, the change is coming!
It is time to analyze the market or adapt to it to come out as strong in the long run.
What are your thoughts?
