Redditors have caught onto the fact that Google includes reddit in their news results and are currently having fun. Utilising website’s powerful traffic potential redditors are requesting upvotes to the front page with the promise of entry into Google’s results. It seems to be working as more ridiculous entries fill Google’s search results:
Even after the result disappears from the news box it still seems to linger at the top of the organic results:
Here’s an example of attempt at Google’s image search manipulation:
So far it works, but only when searching through recent images:
While some are just having the usual pointless reddit fun (some of it too controversial to link to), others are attempting to use the trick to go against companies they don’t like (primarily Comcast). Will this impact reddit’s inclusion in Google’s search results? I would imagine some sort of protocol would be put in place to prevent clear attempts at manipulation but see this happening only if the trend persists for a while.
Dan Petrovic, the managing director of DEJAN, is Australia’s best-known name in the field of search engine optimisation. Dan is a web author, innovator and a highly regarded search industry event speaker.
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6886-3211