Reddit Says It Will Move to a Mostly Logged-In Experience as Search Traffic Falls
On its earnings call, Reddit said search referrals are dropping and it wants visitors signed in, which changes how brands reach people there.
Reddit said on its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday that it is shifting toward a primarily logged-in experience, according to TechCrunch. The company says the move will protect its data from AI scraping and open the door to licensing deals with AI model providers.
The change comes as search traffic shrinks. TechCrunch reports that Reddit's search referrals fell by more than 1 million a week on average in October. U.S. daily active users dropped from 53.2 million in the second quarter to 50.7 million in the third, and Reddit warned that if the trend continues, daily users could fall by a low double-digit percentage next quarter. Revenue still rose 53% to $895 million, and advertising revenue rose 54% to $847 million.
Testing starts in select markets outside the U.S. in the fourth quarter, with no timeline for a worldwide rollout. Reddit has not said where the line between logged-in and logged-out pages will sit. CEO Steve Huffman wrote that "there are still plenty of questions that are unanswered." Reddit says people will not have to give up anonymity to sign in, and it is rebuilding its incognito mode.
If Reddit threads bring you customers from Google or AI answers, expect that traffic to get harder to count on. Check your analytics for Reddit referrals now, and if you use the platform, plan to reach people inside it (posts, comments, ads) rather than through search.
Is AI recommending your business?
Our AI visibility audit checks what ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI say about you, and includes a 1:1 review of the results.
See the audits