Reddit It Not Blocking Google Search

Right now being July 4th, I usually would keep away from writing tales right here however there are a variety of rumors on the market that Reddit is obstructing Google Search from crawling and indexing its content material. It isn’t true – Reddit will not be blocking Google Search.

I imply, at first look, it does appear to be Reddit’s robots.txt file is obstructing all search engines like google, together with Google Search:

However that’s simply what you and I see.

If you happen to entry it from the Google Rich Results test, as if you’re actually accessing it from Google’s IP ranges, you see Google is certainly allowed:

Plus, simply attempt to see if that device can entry the Reddit dwelling web page – it could and is allowed:

I imply, to suppose that Reddit is obstructing Google is sort of wild. For Reddit to really do that’s much more insane. Reddit is getting paid by Google for that content material and Reddit will get an insane quantity of site visitors from Google Search.

Good investigation work Pedro Dias on X and Ryan Siddle over here.

That is what they’re displaying to Google:

# Our robots.txt is for search engines like google

# 80legs
Person-agent: 008
Disallow: /

# 80legs’ new crawler
Person-agent: voltron
Disallow: /

Person-Agent: bender
Disallow: /my_shiny_metal_ass

Person-Agent: Gort
Disallow: /earth

Person-agent: MJ12bot…

— Pedro Dias (@pedrodias) July 4, 2024

So you’ll be able to all calm down, Reddit will nonetheless rank above you for all of your content material in Google Search…

Discussion board dialogue at X.