Social news site Reddit has graciously decided to share its end of year growth numbers in a company blog post. While the company may have grown from 250 million to more than 829 million users, possibly the most interesting inclusion was that their search feature went from “sucked” to “works.”

Once might say that search is one of Reddit’s most important features, giving users the ability to find the various pieces of content posted by users and share it with their social networks. According to a post in July, Reddit fixed its search issues by using IndexTank, a website search tool.

While fixing search may have helped with growth numbers, many speculate that a major factor was the ongoing struggle by competitor Digg.com. The company may have had a competitive advantage in the beginning, but changes and unsatisfied users may have added to Reddit’s success. Just a few months ago, Reddit reported seeing an uptick in page views as well as other numbers.

Growth may also have been seen from a successful “secret santa” campaign the company recently launched for the holidays. Created by a user, redditgifts.com matches anyone interested in giving gifts with a random Reddit user. More than 17,000 Reddit users from 90 countries were exchanging gifts as of Christmas Day.

Reddit, which is owned by media company Conde Nast, has about 10 employees. It has staff in San Francisco, New York, Salt Lake City and Los Angeles.

Tags: bookmarking, news aggregation, sharing, social, social bookmarking

Companies: digg, Reddit

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