Google is now the only search engine that can display Reddit search results, making one of the web's most valuable libraries of user-generated content exclusive to the already dominant search engine on the internet.
If you use Bing, DuckDuckGo, Mojeek, Qwant, or another search engine that doesn't rely on Google's index, and search Reddit using "site:reddit.com", you won't see any results from last week. DuckDuckGo currently brings up 7 links when searching Reddit, but provides no data on where the links go or why, instead simply saying "We wanted to show you a description here, but the site won't let us."
Search results for older versions will still show up, but these search engines can no longer "crawl" Reddit, meaning Google is currently the only search engine that can show Reddit search results. Searching Reddit still works on Kagi, an independent paid search engine that buys parts of its search index from Google.
The news suggests that Google's near-monopoly in search is actively hampering other companies' ability to compete at a time when it faces growing criticism for the quality of its search results.
While neither Reddit nor Google responded to requests for comment, the exclusion of other search engines appears to be the result of a multimillion-dollar deal that gives Google the rights to scrape data from Reddit to train its artificial intelligence products.
Reddit has long been unhappy with artificial intelligence companies using the site to train large language models, and has taken public and aggressive steps to prevent them from continuing to do so. Last year, Reddit began charging for access to its API, making it prohibitively expensive for many third-party apps to operate, thus destroying many third-party apps beloved by the Reddit community. Earlier this year, Reddit announced a $60 million deal with Google that would allow Google to license Reddit content to train its artificial intelligence products.
3Google did not respond to a request for comment, but the announcement of the company's deal with Reddit not only points to Reddit's value for training artificial intelligence, but also points to something many of us already know: As Google search gets worse at delivering relevant search results, one of the best ways to get results is to add "Reddit" to the search query, directing Google to a site that has been writing advice and recommendations for almost two decades, with real people.