Although Brave just recently introduced its search engine, the company is already coming up with handy, new features.
Brave Search recently added a feature to its results page that delivers alternative results you won’t easily find on other engines. Let’s take a look at it.
Brave Search Introduces Discussions
On April 20, 2022, Brave announced a change to its search engine's algorithm to add a new feature called Discussions. Thanks to Discussions, Brave Search now displays a set of results from forum sites related to your search query.
The feature's sole purpose is to show real human discussions and provide firsthand answers rather than relying on SEO content. Brave Search fetches the results from community-driven platforms like Reddit, Stack Exchange, Tripadvisor, and other forum-like websites.
This means that one of the things we can now expect from Brave Search is better, spam-free results.
How Discussions in Brave Search Works
If you are a Brave Search user, you don’t need to do anything to see Discussions. Just do a regular search, and the Discussions topics will appear on the results page. However, note that these results appear only on certain types of queries, so you might not find them every time.
The good thing about these results is you can see the date, the number of upvotes, and comments directly from the results page. Moreover, you can expand the result and view the original post.
Like all results, the Brave Search ranking algorithm gauges the quality of forum conversation to decide if it will appear on the results page. It does so by analyzing the relevancy and recency of the discussions.
It also looks at the quality of the forums and user engagement of the post. In most cases, you will find relevant or at least tangentially-related results.
How Discussions Will Impact Brave Search Users
Let’s face it: for a lot of queries, the Google results page is half-filled with ads and the rest with copies written by marketers or affiliates. Finding honest, firsthand reviews, answers, and opinions have become increasingly tough with the plethora of SEO content.
This is where Brave's Discussions feature comes in. Instead of marketing copies, it shows reviews and answers from those who have experienced it themselves. This feature is a godsend for those of you who like to append Reddit at the end of your search queries.
There are a few cases in which Discussions can find helpful pages that Google can’t. For example, if you’re looking for a product review or suggestion, you can read user reviews on forums.
Similarly, when you're looking for travel-related or location-specific questions, Discussions can show answers from locals or relevant people. This feature makes it easy for programmers to get quick help from peers without reading lengthy articles.
Does Discussions Make Brave Search Worth Using?
Besides privacy, Discussions provide yet another compelling reason to use Brave Search. This is especially true if you add Reddit to your Google search queries and are annoyed by its intrusive ads.
Given the declining trust in the results from major search engines, Google should definitely take note. Either it should improve its algorithm to remove SEO spam from its results or add a similar feature.
The latter case would be a win-win, as it can continue showing up ads while also displaying real conversations from forums that actually matter to the users.
Are You Switching to Brave Search?
Like its browser, Brave Search promises a more private and transparent browsing experience. But, it seems like the company is equally focusing on improving the search results, which is what matters the most.
Besides Discussions, Brave Search offers a couple of exciting features that you should check out, especially if you’re planning to switch from Google.