The world of AI search is shifting quick, and this week’s information is all about Reddit and OpenAI. Or so it appears! For my part, it’s actually about Google. Let’s take a step again to grasp what’s happening.
The information: Reddit’s inventory drops, following its dip in ChatGPT citations.
As individuals more and more shift from Google to AI search, Reddit has been a extremely cited supply throughout massive language fashions (LLMs). Nevertheless, this week noticed a barrage of media headlines highlighting new third-party information — from PromptWatch and others — exhibiting that ChatGPT has been citing Reddit far much less in latest weeks.
(Supply: PromptWatch)
Investor issues about Reddit’s diminished ChatGPT citations led to the corporate’s inventory sliding. Reddit’s inventory value fell from $240.11 USD on the shut on September 26, 2025, to $205.50 USD on the shut on October 2, 2025. That may be a 14.4% value drop over the course of 5 days.
Why is Reddit being cited much less in ChatGPT outcomes?
Google made it more durable to crawl its search outcomes, main OpenAI to make use of Reddit’s API, which can be extra pricey.
Let’s dig into this.
Round September 10, Google eliminated the num=100 parameter from its search. Till not too long ago, including ‘?num=100’ to a Google search URL confirmed the highest 100 outcomes as a substitute of simply 10. This was extensively utilized by information firms scraping Google search outcomes – together with suppliers that OpenAI reportedly buys information from. OpenAI doesn’t crawl Google straight however purchases search information from third events, which relied on the now-removed parameter.
Now that the parameter not works, most instruments are pressured to give attention to the highest 10, or maybe the highest 20, search outcomes. In response to Ahrefs, 57.8% of Reddit’s key phrases rank exterior the highest 20 search outcomes.
So, the explanation Reddit dropped in ChatGPT visibility round September 10 is not any accident. It’s as a result of Google shipped defenses towards AI rivals scraping their information.
Because of this, I think ChatGPT runs fewer Retrieval-Augmented Era (RAG) crawls to Reddit. A RAG crawl refers to an internet crawler getting used to gather information from web sites for the particular function of enriching solutions with reasoning.
Whereas OpenAI has entry to Reddit’s API, the corporate doubtless makes use of it for coaching information fairly than for reasoning solutions. Stay retrieval is optimized round sources which can be lower-cost, simpler to refresh, and constantly structured. This helps reconcile why Reddit can have an API deal but nonetheless see seen citations drop.
In information from Profound, a G2 associate, we discovered that Wikipedia’s visibility elevated as Reddit’s dropped. Wikipedia doubtless stuffed the hole as a result of it constantly ranks in Google’s high outcomes and offers canonical, structured content material, which retrieval programs favor.
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There are a number of forces at play concurrently, making the AI search panorama an attention-grabbing one to look at proper now!
On the time of this text’s publication, there isn’t any publicly confirmed change from OpenAI or Google particular to Reddit. Whereas it’s unclear the place issues will head subsequent with Reddit’s citations, one factor we all know for sure is that change is inevitable. And alter is occurring quick!
Listed here are just some different tendencies I’ve noticed over the previous few weeks throughout the AI search panorama:
- Reddit proposed a brand new deal to OpenAI and Alphabet that features dynamic pricing primarily based on AI reply inclusion and Google customers turning into Reddit contributors by default.
- OpenAI simply launched direct checkout on ChatGPT, which is able to give us extra information about how individuals are utilizing ChatGPT as a result of attribution will probably be a lot simpler.
- Person-generated content material (UGC) nonetheless wins in LLM outcomes, regardless of the Reddit information this week. Reddit continues to be probably the most cited UGC platform by far. And, software program market G2 — that includes over 3 million evaluations — is the 4th-ranked digital tech and software program supply on ChatGPT, following Wikipedia, Reddit, and TechRadar. That is in line with the August 2025 AI Visibility Index Examine by SEMRUSH Enterprise.
Comply with me on LinkedIn for extra of my views on AI search and the way companies can adapt and optimize their search engine marketing and reply engine optimization (AEO) methods.
