Is There Any Search Engine That Doesn’t Index Reddit? Yes!

In the past year or so, you must have found Reddit listed in almost all Google searches. Google somehow finds a reason to list Reddit in the top five on SERP. Believe me, I have seen Reddit results for queries where it doesn’t even make any sense!

Initially, I even removed Reddit from Google search, but adding a negative search operator to every query felt time-consuming. Then, I avoid installing third-party extensions on the browser due to security and privacy concerns.

Now, I had to find a search engine that doesn’t index Reddit. Because that seemed like the only viable way to exclude Reddit and other forums from Google Search. So, I got to work!

Which search engine doesn’t index Reddit?

As surprising as it may sound, no search engine except Google indexes Reddit. This is because, in July 2024, Reddit altered its robots.txt file and prevented search engines from indexing content on the website.

So, search engines like Bing, Yahoo Search, Brave Search, and DuckDuckGo can’t index Reddit anymore. When you perform a targeted Reddit search on these search engines using “site:reddit.com“, only webpages indexed before July’24 will appear.

Reddit’s reasoning behind the move is, “Reddit believes in an open internet, but not the misuse of public content.”

Basically, Reddit didn’t want search engines or other companies to use its data for training AI models.

But why is Google allowed to index Reddit? That’s because Google is paying Reddit $60 million annually for access to content that Google is using to train its AI models. These reports first surfaced last year in February when Reuters broke the story.

So, apart from Google, no other search engines can index Reddit after July 2024. As someone who wants fewer Reddit pages in the search results, this was good news to me!

Google prioritizing Reddit has received mixed responses from users. While some call it a revolutionary move, citing that Reddit has non-promotional content, others find it absolutely dumb because forums are often a source of misinformation. To be honest, I align with the views of the latter, although not very closely.

What do you think about the move? Do you want to Reddit to appear more or less in Google search? Share with our readers in the comments section!