Over the past decade, Reddit has grown from being a mere competitor to Digg, to completely replacing a large portion of the forums and chat communities on the Internet.
Today, with over 26 million active users, it is a popular platform for social news and discussion. If you don’t use Reddit, you are missing out on a lot of important information and very interesting conversations.
The good news is, if you’ve just recently joined Reddit, you have millions of posts to search for! Want to know tips for getting started on a keto diet? Reddit has them. Need information on which credit card is best for your teen? Reddit can help. However, there are a few tricks you need to know to find exactly what you’re looking for.
In this article, let’s take a look at Reddit advanced search operators and learn how to navigate Reddit searches like a pro.
Keyword Search Operators for Reddit
Reddit keyword search operators
Reddit keyword searches use terms that tell subsequent text how to filter results. Using them is the most advanced way to narrow your search to the content you want. There are currently nine of them, and they are all shown below.
title
The “title” search operator limits the results to messages in which text after them (requiring quotation marks if more than one word) appears in the title. This can be used as a way to find entire discussions on a specific topic.
- Example: title: “training my dog”
author
The “author” search operator restricts results to posts made by a specific user. Case is not considered.
- Example: author: spez
selftext
The self-text search operator restricts the results to its own messages in which the text after that (requiring quotes if more than one word) is in the body. It can sometimes behave strangely when more than one word is used, even if it is enclosed in quotes.
- Example: selftext: ”playstation”
url
The “url” search operator restricts the results to post links, which then contain the exact URL. This can sometimes return a small percentage of posts with links that don’t match the URL.
- Example: url: https: //www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/ wind-roof-solar-photo-installations-injection-almost-half-20190414- p51e0u.html
site
The “site” search operator restricts results to links to posts containing URLs belonging to a specific domain name.
- Example: site: free-online-converters.com
- Example: nsfw: no
- Example: self. : yes
- Example: subreddit: games
- Example: flair: news
- Example: Sneakers AND Socks
- Example: pineapple OR mango
- Example: cheese NOT pizza
nsfw
The “nsfw” search operator allows you to toggle whether NSFW messages are displayed (with “yes” or “1”) or hidden (with “no” or “0”).
self
The “self” search operator allows you to toggle the display (with “yes” or “1”) or hide (with “no” or “0”) your own messages.
subreddit
The “subreddit” search operator restricts results to publications made in a specific subreddit.
flair
The flair search operator limits the results to messages tagged with a specific original text.
Boolean Search Operators for Reddit
Reddit’s Boolean Search operators
Reddit’s logical search operators use strict conditions to limit search results. I’ve noticed that these operators don’t work as expected when using the new Reddit design, so you’ll have to revert to the old design if you want to use them.
AND
The AND search operator limits results to messages containing both terms. This works by default for basic on-demand searches, which means you don’t have to use it, but it might be necessary in complex cases where several different operators are used.
OR
The OR operator limits the results to messages containing any term. You must enclose the term in quotation marks if it contains more than one word.
NOT
The “NOT” search operator limits the results to messages that do not include text after that. You must enclose the term in quotation marks if it contains more than one word.
The best thing about Reddit’s advanced search operators is that they can be used together! By enclosing each statement in parentheses, you can associate a long set of conditions that can help narrow down millions of messages to a small handful.
Another great tip is to try searching using both the new and old Reddit designs. For some reason, it seems that some operators behave differently for each. As noted above, Boolean operators actually only work when using the old design. While Reddit has clearly not addressed all the flaws in its search function, there is no doubt that with the top ten operators listed above, searching on Reddit is one thing.
Wondering how you can use similar techniques with Google search? Check out our article on Google Search Operators.
–