With AI-generated and SEO-driven content flooding the internet, people are turning to Reddit to seek authentic, real-world perspectives. Reddit Answers—currently in beta—streamlines this search experience, and in many ways, outdoes Google Search.
Finding unfiltered, lived experiences on the internet can be a bit of a hassle. You need to append search operators, such as “reddit” or “site:reddit.com,” to your queries to cut through low-quality, AI-generated, or SEO-prioritized content and obtain information that’s both accurate and genuine.
Sure, you can search Reddit natively—with its built-in search—to find posts across various communities (a.k.a. subreddits). However, it’s often clunky, requiring the use of exact keywords and sifting through posts and comments to find the relevant information. Reddit took note of this and, a while ago, launched Answers.
Reddit Answers is an AI-powered conversational search tool that makes searching for content on Reddit easy. All you need to do is type your question in natural language, and the tool will return a synthesized, easy-to-understand answer based on all related posts and comments on the platform.
Reddit includes inline citations and links to the original posts and comments in its answers, so you can delve deeper into the discussions if you need more context. Below the response, you’ll also see suggestions for related subreddits that you can visit for more similar content. This is followed by a section that lists all the posts Reddit Answers used to generate the response. You may use these if you spot something off in the answer and want to review it.
Here are all the key advantages Reddit Answers holds over Google Search that make it a better search tool, especially for perspective- or- experience-based queries.
Google’s algorithm favors sites with good SEO practices. As such, any site playing the SEO game well has a high chance of getting its content to the top of the search rankings, even if it doesn’t offer the best and most authentic information. This isn’t an issue with Reddit Answers.
Instead of generating an answer on its own to land on the results page, the tool creates a response by summarizing users’ posts and comments, which often talk about first-hand experiences or personal insights and are validated by other users through upvotes and comments. You can think of this response as a gist of what the community thinks about the topic, with more accurate information and human-centric perspectives.
Multiple Perspectives Deliver Nuanced Understanding
Since it’s driven by community posts and comments, Reddit Answers inherently takes into account multiple perspectives when creating a response to your search query. This diversity ensures a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the topic—one that’s free from personal biases and sheds light on all the complexities and subtleties that SEO-driven content can’t often match.
Niche Communities Offer Deeper Knowledge
Reddit is home to a range of communities, including niche ones with passionate and knowledgeable users actively posting content and interacting with others’ posts and comments to help them. As a result, Reddit Answers can respond to your queries related to specialized interests or niche topics, such as those about mechanical keyboards, home lab, self-hosting, or home workouts, in detail with more accurate information and multiple perspectives.
In contrast, Google Search isn’t as effective at helping you seek answers in such situations. This is because most sites on the internet overlook these topics due to their niche audiences and instead focus on targeting broader or popular topics to capture larger audiences. Those that do cover them don’t go into the depths either, nor do they update their content regularly.
Conversational Format Enables Direct Engagement
All Reddit Answers’ responses summarize people’s views on a topic and give out related links that you can visit for more details. However, if you don’t prefer having to dig through those links manually—and have follow-up questions about the response—you can ask them directly in a simple conversational tone.
This feature can be useful when you need clarification on a point in the response, want a concept broken down into simpler words, or want the response in a specific format, such as a list or a single paragraph. For the best results, try to be as explicit and detailed as possible with your follow-up queries.
Use Google for Facts, Reddit Answers for Insights
Reddit Answers has its advantages over Google Search, but it can’t completely replace it. Both tools have their respective strengths, and each outshines the other in certain areas. As such, you should use them in combination, picking the right tool based on your search requirements, to find accurate information online.
For instance, since Reddit Answers is best for seeking personal experiences or multiple perspectives on a topic, it can help you find local coffee shop recommendations in a town, pick the right badminton shoes, troubleshoot an issue with your car, or learn about what it’s like living in a city you plan on moving to soon.
On the other hand, Google Search excels at giving instant access to factual information. This is handy for times when you want to define words, check the latest stock market news, keep up with the live scores for your favorite teams, or look up when a movie is releasing.
