Brave Search introduces Discussions to add real human conversations to search results
Brave Search, a search engine operated by the maker of Brave Browser, is displaying user discussion content for certain queries now.
Brave Software acquired the search engine technology developed by Tailcat in 2021. Tailcat was originally developed by Cliqz, a company in which Mozilla had invested. Tailcat was renamed to Brave Search and set as the default search engine on Brave in some regions.
Brave Search is available as a web search engine that anyone can use. It works similarly to other search engines, but it still has a beta tag.
The new Discussions section is added as a block to search results. A search for “how to upgrade to Windows 11” returns articles, video content, and also the new discussion section. The returned results did not match the search query for this particular result. Instead of providing answers to the question, all four visible results asked if it was worth upgrading to Windows 11. Discussions need to be adjusted for best discussion results.
Brave Software notes that discussions are bringing “real human conversations (and responses)” to search results pages.
With Discussions, the search results on Brave Search are supplemented by actual conversations related to the query, pulled from popular forum sites like Reddit. This allows users to easily see what the community is saying about a topic, rather than just reading content curated by websites.
Discussions are an attempt to add value to search results by adding another source of information to the results. Traditional search engine algorithms may favor certain sites in the results, often lowering the quality of the results.
The recently published article Google Search is Dying provides some examples of just how bad Google Search has gotten in recent times.
The discussions add another point of view to the search results according to Brave Software. While content from sites like Reddit has already been included in organic results, Discussions is giving that content its own section in search results to elevate it and make it more discoverable.
Discussions currently pulls data only from Reddit and StackCommerce, but Brave Software promises that more sources will be added in the future. The Brave Search algorithm analyzes the search query to find out if the discussion content is available to add to the quality of the results. It uses a variety of signals for that, including recency, popularity, content quality, and relevance.
Brave Software is working on another feature, called Brave Goggles, for Brave Search, which will “allow users to create their own result filters and rule sets to narrow down a search space or alter the order of results.”
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Discussions promote content from certain discussion forums and sites on Brave Search. Only two content sources are used at the time, which is very limiting. Adding more fonts can remove the limitation. It will be interesting to see if Brave Search’s Discussion feature will include non-forum sites, for example, blogs with a lot of comments on a given topic, in Discussions.
Now you: Have you tried Brave Search? What’s your take on the new Discussions feature?
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