Reddit rolls out new updates to the site's search capabilities

Reddit has announced a number of new updates to the site’s search capabilities to make the platform of content more easily searchable, starting first with the ability to search comments. 

With this latest update, for the first time in sixteen years everything on Reddit is now searchable - users, posts, communities, and now comments - making Reddit one of the first platforms with this capability. Additional new features include completely new user interfaces for search and improved search relevance.  

With the new comment search capability, users looking for particular discussions or comments on Reddit no longer need to click on several posts and then scroll through what can sometimes be thousands of comments to find threads that are relevant to them. The new feature solves this problem and gives redditors the ability to comment search directly and further refine their searches by searching for comments within specific communities. 

The platform also has a new look for the search results page on desktop and mobile – showing content in a new, simpler design. Based on user feedback Reddit is now prioritising posts over other content types in its updated search design and has simplified the results page so users can more easily skim through the results and find what they’re looking for. The team is also working to make search safer for all users by reducing the number of unexpected results based on the searcher’s intent. 

Improving relevance in search has been another core area of focus. To make search a better experience, Reddit has updated its infrastructure and focused on: 

• Allowing for less restrictive matching - 100% of a query doesn’t have to match the text of a post to return relevant results.
• Using user patterns to improve results - Reddit now has a better understanding of user intentions when they search for something on Reddit. 
• Incorporating signals for post results - this enhancement looks at users’ clicks and interactions on search results as a ‘signal’ of what might be valuable for them. 

The ability to comment search has rolled out on desktop. This feature, along with the other updates, can be accessed by heading to the home feed and clicking within the search bar, and conduct a search. 

The search team has put together a specialized wiki to help users get the most out of Reddit search.

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