Tumblr does a lot of things right: GIFs, easy-to-use templates, viral sharing mechanics, unintrusive ads, the list goes on and on. The Yahoo acquisition has had its effects, namely in the ended tenure of some important Tumblr employees, but the platform continues to Tumblr on as a popular, engaging content engine.
One thing it’s never been able to deliver, though, was a search feature that was any good. There’d been small updates that improved search, but never anything that could really, truly find you the Tumblrlogs, communities, or specific posts you were looking for. You usually just had to get lucky.
Now, thankfully, that’s all being amended. Tumblr has announced a completely redesigned search client that should massively improve the experience. Here are the bullet points, per Tumblr:
- You can now use multiple #tags in a single query to find all that #hello kitty #nail art.
- Searching for “government shutdown” now returns posts tagged #government shutdown or that mention “government shutdown.” Searching “#government shutdown” will limit the results to posts with that #tag.
- You’ll now see related blogs in your search results.
- Use the new Filter menu to filter by post type!
Tumblr has also put the toggle to see NSFW content right to the search results page, so you don’t have to dive into your settings to get your sexy photo fix once you’ve gotten home and you’re not on a work computer.
The upgrade is likely much thanks to new owner Yahoo, which has consistently been challenging Google lately as the most-used search client. Social platforms are increasingly focusing on creating better search agents so that their users don’t have to turn elsewhere to find what they’re looking for – why ever leave, we can help you with that right here! Facebook’s continued attention to Graph Search proves as much, as does Twitter relatively recent update to its search function.
Who or whatever is responsible, it’s making search on Tumblr a much more comprehensive experience, and turning users on to consuming as much as they’re creating. We can all rest easy now knowing that searching for #cat gifs will turn up animations as well as Tumblrlogs devoted to the stuff.
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