Due to the nature of fediverse, you can’t just do a “site:lemmy” search as you’d do with reddit (site:reddit.com). I was searching for ways to do it on my firefox browsers and I came to a solution that searches 21 different instances simultaneously, which I consider to be a big part of lemmy (I also include kbin instances). I am using firefox with DDGO (which has a 500-character limit per search query).
There’s gonna be a text you will have to copy, I’ll just write it once here hidden inside the spoiler:
"URL string"
https://duckduckgo.com/%s (site:lemmy.world |site:kbin.social |site:lemm.ee |site:programming.dev |site:lemmy.ml |site:sh.itjust.works |site:feddit.de |site:lemmy.ca |site:beehaw.org |site:lemmy.dbzer0.com |site:lemmy.blahaj.zone |site:discuss.tchncs.de |site:sopuli.xyz |site:lemmy.one |site:feddit.uk |site:midwest.social |site:infosec.pub |site:slrpnk.net |site:mander.xyz |site:ttrpg.network |site:lemdro.id)
Replace it when I ask you to write the “URL string”.
There are different processes, depending on the type of device/OS (computer, mobile/android etc.). I will list some of them and you can pick the one you want:
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Firefox Android: Go to search settings->manage alternative search engines->add search engine. Pick a name you want (eg.
Lemmy) and on the search string URL paste the “URL string” I’ve written above. Now next time you want to search Lemmy, just select “Lemmy” as your search engine. -
Firefox Computer V1: Create a bookmark with a name you want (eg. Lemmy search). In the URL field paste the “URL string” I’ve written above. In the keyword field add a keyword to use as a prefix to your searches (eg.
@l). Now to search Lemmy, you can type@l "random search"in the address bar. -
Firefox Computer V2: Open a new tab and type
about:configin the address bar. In the search box type:browser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefreshClick on the little+symbol on the right. Go to firefox Settings->Search or enter this in the address bar:about:preferences#searchIn the “Search Shortcuts” section you should notice a new “Add” button. Just like on android, press “Add”, insert a name (eg.Lemmy), add the “URL string” from above and once you’re done you can add a keyword (eg.@lemmy). If you want, you can now go back and disablebrowser.urlbar.update2.engineAliasRefresh(press the trash can icon) (I don’t know if this will crash anything).
I really wanted to search lemmy, but not being able to do a simple site:lemmy detered me from doing so.
So there you have it! The added text is 412 characters which leaves 88 characters for your searches. You can change the url to add/remove instances you want. If anyone can improve it please (like shrinking the url or if you manage to search all instances) it will be appreciated.
Credits:
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The idea came from this site (which I found on lemmy): https://fedi-search.com/ I asked it to search lemmy on ddgo and gave me a similar string to the one I have above, only limited to fewer instances.
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I found the biggest instances I wanted to include in the search using the csv from this github page: https://github.com/maltfield/awesome-lemmy-instances/blob/main/awesome-lemmy-instances.csv
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Lastly, I found the computer process from 2 answers on this stackoverflow question: https://superuser.com/questions/7327/how-to-add-a-custom-search-engine-to-firefox
There’s https://fedi-search.com/ and https://www.search-lemmy.com/ as well. I’m not sure if that latter one is still active though, it certainly appears to be down at the moment.
Search Lemmy is on hold, they had performance issues with accessing lemmy and are waiting for a fix
Yep I checked them both (in the credits). What I did is kinda like the fedi-search, but with more/different instances.
I’d like to check search-lemmy, but it’s down for me as well…
fedi-search has an error message for me.
Instance has been ratelimitedI had the same error when using Whoogle. I didn’t get an error with other search engines.
I’ve been having issues with search-lemmy for a while now, it doesn’t really show anything recent
I have to think, on some BBS forum somewhere, before search engines took off, someone made a script out of
curl,grep, and a list of popular domains to search this new thing called “the Internet”.This giant aggregation string you’ve created isn’t something that should need to be done manually, this is something search engines should just do for us. Instead they’re focused on ads and listicles…
Maybe duckduckgo will eventually add a search for lemmy like they did for reddit… Shrug
I don’t think it should be necessary to tell a search engine where the most relevant results are located. That’s literally the only point of a search engine. I want to enter a search term, and if the best results are on reddit, I want to see those, or if it’s on Lemmy I want to see that, or if the best result is somewhere else I don’t know about, THAT’S what I want to see. The fact that we have to manually tell search engines where to search is completely backwards.
Not ranting at you, you’ve done good work. Just disappointed at the current state of “search” engines.
Ahh now I get what you mean, ok ok :)
Edit: My 100th comment on the platform!🎉
Awesome. I submitted this as a Bang on DuckDuckGo. I don’t know if they accept self-links, but it’s worth a try.
Why not just use your instance’s search function?
I dont know if can do a “fuzzy” search for me. Plus it may be showing my searches to the instance owner so ugh, dunno.
If they are anything like me, they are used to reddit search being hot garbage, so they prefer to use a search engine. I have no clue if lemmy search is any good
Because lemmy search sucks. Its very specific, and usually the most relavant stuff is buried by tangetially related things.
I think it is still miles better than Reddit… But I can be wrong.
One reason might be: Each instance only has a partial knowledge of content in Lemmy. It can be unaware of certain communities on other instances, if your instance has not discovered them yet. Hence the need for all these meta-search tools.
This seems like a good candidate for a bookmarklet that would append the (site:…) parts to an existing DuckDuckGo search result URL. Then you could just do a normal search followed by clicking the bookmarklet.
For myself, I just created a
!lemmycustom bang in Kagi with this URL:https://lemmy.ml/search?q=%s(URL encoding on.)
You can replace the domain name with your instance’s and it should work the same.
Kagi is great.
This would only search one instance, is that right?
Correct. However, the instance will contain any federated content it knows of aswell. As long as there is at least one subscriber to the community from your instance, you should be able to find the community’s posts.
Nice, thank you. This was the piece I was curious about!
Yes
Hopefully, one day we will have it SEO
That’s actually pretty handy. Cheers!
I was literally wondering about this exact thing today, thanks for this!
Thanks! This is very useful. Saved.
Removed by mod
Really useful!! Thanks for sharing
It works, tried now. Thanks.
Haha, happy it worked for you. I’m just a bit worried that it may somehow get confused with all the parameters and limit the quantinty of the results.
I don’t see the URL string?
I only see ::: spoiler “URL string” :::
You should be able to click/tap it (or the arrow on the left) and reveal the text, but anyways, there you are:
https://duckduckgo.com/%s (site:lemmy.world |site:kbin.social |site:lemm.ee |site:programming.dev |site:lemmy.ml |site:sh.itjust.works |site:feddit.de |site:lemmy.ca |site:beehaw.org |site:lemmy.dbzer0.com |site:lemmy.blahaj.zone |site:discuss.tchncs.de |site:sopuli.xyz |site:lemmy.one |site:feddit.uk |site:midwest.social |site:infosec.pub |site:slrpnk.net |site:mander.xyz |site:ttrpg.network |site:lemdro.id)
