Redditors have been Googling things they need to know and tacking “Reddit” to the end of their searches for years to block out clickbait and get answers more quickly.
Google, meanwhile, has been advising sites to create people-first content and introduced a core search update in August that prioritized sites that did just that.
Since then, Reddit has seen its traffic almost triple, according to Semrush data published by Business Insider on Wednesday.
Alexis Ohanian, Cofounder, Seven Seven Six and Co-Founder and Former Executive Chairman, Reddit. Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP
The data showed that Reddit traffic has skyrocketed from 132 million visits in August 2023 to a projected 346 million this month.
Reddit posts are now as visible as the top Google Search results as posts from Instagram, per Sistrix data cited by BI.
Related: You’ll Never Achieve Work-Life Balance — and You Shouldn’t, Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Says
At the same time, many smaller sites have seen traffic numbers drop since Google’s update.
Growth strategy firm Amsive identified that the sites with the highest declines in traffic followed similar patterns: They included excessive ads, affiliate links, keyword patterns optimized for SEO, AI content, and a lack of original images.
A post from Google search liason Danny Sullivan on X, formerly Twitter, earlier this month stood by more forum content in search results.
“I also know some of the SEO folks who tend to be vocal on this platform really dislike seeing more forum content in our search results,” Sullivan wrote. “But actual searchers seem to like it. They proactively seek it out.”
That unit appears automatically if the systems think it might be relevant and useful. I’s not like someone said “put it first for that particular query” — which I know you understand, but others reading this might not. That said, I can appreciate the concern and issue, and I’ve…
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) April 3, 2024
Related: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Sounds Off on Proposed TikTok Ban
Data from software company Ahrefs offers a global picture of Reddit organic traffic: Traffic rose from 160 million in August 2023 to 420 million in February. Quora, which has a forum format just like Reddit with community answers, saw traffic more than triple from September to March, according to the same source.
Reddit made its public market debut last month and inked a deal with Google earlier this year that allows Google to train its AI on Reddit content.
Google dominates the search market, consistently holding above 90% of the global market this past year, according to Stat Counter.
Related: Reddit Debuts on New York Stock Exchange, First Major Tech IPO Since Pinterest in 2019
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