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 focused communities called “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 of weird subreddits in 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 be someone whose cat swallowed one of those tiny JLab JBuds Mini earbuds, and now the poor feline can’t stop listening to your AI-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:
- “Hot” displays trending topics.
- “Top” prioritizes posts with lots of upvotes and comments.
- “New” is for showing recent posts.
- “Comment Count” prioritizes hotly debated posts, regardless of votes.
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 disable NSFW (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 to see the human experience in 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 to overclock your CPU and don’t want to see results from the Intel Core 2 Duo era, or you just want to see how other people use your favorite gaming mouse in 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 a pro 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 by Bill 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 a complete list of modifiers and what they do:
- author filters posts or comments made by the user you specify (e.g., author:thisisbillgates).
- subreddit only displays results from the subreddit you specified (e.g., subreddit:catsonglass)
- title searches for posts that have your keyword in the title (e.g., title:protein).
- selftext searches the content of the post for your keyword (e.g., selftext:dlc).
- url finds links that contain your keyword (e.g., url:ryzen).
- site limits results to only the website you specify (e.g., site:howtogeek.com).
- flair only displays posts that contain the flair you specify (e.g., flair:nvidia).
- self:true or self:yes limits searches to only text posts.
- self:false or self:no limits searches to only link posts.
- nsfw:yes only displays NSFW content (only works with SafeSearch off).
- nsfw:no only displays content that isn’t tagged as NSFW.
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:
- “” (quotation marks) allow you to search for an exact word or phrase (e.g., typing “translucent glass” only results that contain the exact phrase).
- AND allows you to connect search terms and will show results that contain both of them (e.g., mouse AND keyboard).
- OR allows you to connect search terms and will show results that contain one of your specified terms (e.g., mouse OR keyboard).
- NOT allows you to connect search terms and will show results that contain one but not the other (e.g., mouse NOT keyboard).
- () (parentheses) allow you to group and control the order of operations in complex searches (e.g., (cat OR dog) AND food will only return results that mention “cat” or “dog” and also “food”).
You Can Always Resort to Google
If you still can’t get good results using Reddit’s search, you can always resort to the most popular search engine—Google. I say Google specifically because Reddit is now preventing other search engines from 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 can 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!
