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I'm Starting A Search Engine For The Fediverse (lemmy.ca)

submitted 11 months ago by lautan@lemmy.ca to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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Hey everyone,

This isn't an announcement, just wanted peoples thoughts on this.

I think everyone knows searching the fediverse can be better. Googling doesn't work too well, etc. So I wanted to do my part and help out.

Indexing all posts, etc is quite a lot to handle, so I wanted to start small and just focus on video search. I've started indexing videos from Peertube and other video websites. (Even YouTube but this could be removed to just focus on independent sites)

I know Peertube has their own search engine for videos. I will be reaching out to them. Compared to my site I'm planning it'll have other video sources and be easier to use.

So that leads to feedback from you guys.

What do you think about indexing videos posted on the fediverse and other independent platforms?
Are there similar services?
Am I just wasting my time?

(page 2) 21 comments

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[-] JoBo@feddit.uk 1 points 10 months ago

I don't know anything about the technical side of this. But I would (possibly naively) think that it would be simpler to have a filter that you could automatically apply to sift bog-standard search engine results for Fediverse instances? Like adding "site:uk" to the end of a normal search, except that your filter term would check a list of Fediverse instances to return the relevant results.

And make it an app/add-on so that people can use it with their usual search strategies.

[-] lautan@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago

People been doing that now but it comes with limitations. Thanks for the input.

[-] yuki2501@lemmy.world -4 points 11 months ago

Just, for the love of god, make sure to make it opt-in. Don't scan people's posts without their consent.

Also, if you're going with this, make sure to respect people's requests for removal, e.g. deleting their posts from the engine when they delete them from their instances. Otherwise you'd get in trouble with the EU regarding GDPR...