Inquiring minds have leaned on Reddit for a long time for community, opinion and transparent product and service takes. It’s one of the internet’s most popular and successful domains. It’s even a top-5-cited domain across today’s leading AI search tools, including ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews, despite a not insignificant drop in citations in September 2025.
All of that proxy traffic from Google has led Reddit to develop its own internal search functionality — complete with AI — to compete. You’ve always been able to search for content on Reddit, but the experience is becoming more and more akin to a traditional search engine instead of an on-site content filter, where people begin and end their searches within the platform itself. And 80 million weekly users seem to prefer it over everything else.
Here’s what’s been happening with Reddit search lately, including what’s new, its evolving AI features and whether or not you should be optimizing for it as a marketer or search engine optimizer.
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Reddit Search: Old School or Burgeoning Tool?
I wasn’t there when Reddit was founded in 2005, nor do I have any idea about the founders’ initial vision for the website. I’m sure it was grand, but I’m unsure if it flirted with the idea of becoming the internet’s new favorite search engine. It was, and still is, a forum-based social media and news aggregation website, but lately, it’s been making some big moves in search.
During the company’s fourth quarter 2025 earnings call (PDF), Steven Huffman, Reddit CEO, said:
“In Q4, we made significant progress in unifying our core search with Reddit Answers, our AI-powered search feature. Together, they drove more search volume queries per user with over 80 million people searching directly on Reddit every week in Q4, up from 60 million just a year ago.”
Reddit Answers, independent of the platform’s core search function, boasted 15 million queries in Q4 last year, which is about a 1,400 percent increase over its 1 million queries a year ago.
On January 5th, 2026, Reddit revealed a new beta feature called Max campaigns that “automate targeting, creative selection and rotation, placements, and budget allocation.” On February 19th, it published a news article unveiling a new shopping experience in search. All signs point to Reddit becoming a full-fledged search engine. At least it certainly seems they’re building toward that.
80 million weekly searchers may sound inferior to Google’s billions, but it’s endlessly impressive for a website that didn’t set out to be a search engine in the first place.
Reddit even hired a new Chief Product Officer, Maria Angelidou-Smith, to help grow the business — and I imagine search will be an increasingly significant part of that.
So, the verdict here is definitely “burgeoning tool.” But is now the time to start optimizing for Reddit search independently? I’m not so sure.
The Current State of Search
Google is still the search champion to be sure, but since generative AI engines and tools have encroached (sometimes unwelcomely) on our lives over the past few years, the landscape has democratized, probably more than ever. Users are discovering information in all sorts of ways, and across all sorts of platforms, many of which are AI-enabled in some capacity.
Sane and straight-thinking marketers and SEOs can’t possibly optimize for every single search tool, especially if best practices vary for each. What we can do, though, is determine which new features or platforms are worth optimizing for and build strategies that suit.
Generative engine optimization (GEO) is a big discussion point right now that is more or less an all-encompassing term for visibility strategies for generative discovery engines — in my experience, mostly AI Overviews/Gemini, ChatGPT and/or Perplexity. With those “Big 3,” GEO is a bit of a catch-all. If you can win the attention of one, there’s a good chance you can use the same strategy, or a similar-enough one, to win the attention of the others.
But Reddit. Despite how “same-y” its search feature appears to be compared to other engines, it’s a completely different platform with an entirely different set of rules, ambitions, goals and audience.
Should I Optimize for Reddit Search?
I wouldn’t say that there’s a rush to get yourself visible on Reddit like there currently is to appease something like AI Overviews. In Reddit’s case, its search feature, as it currently exists, is still young. Looking past the search function, there’s value to advertising and being active on Reddit as a brand. We write about that now and then on our sister blog:
- A Beginner’s Guide To Using Reddit: Marketing Edition.
- Reddit Marketing Strategy Guide: How To Leverage Reddit for Marketing Success.
- Reddit Ads Case Study: How To Advertise on Reddit (and Get Results).
In terms of Reddit search, it’s still too early to dump SEO or GEO resources there full-time. But I wouldn’t ignore it completely, either. By the looks of it, its search-savvy user base is growing fast, and it could very well be a matter of time before you’re hiring Reddit SEO/GEO specialists.
Final Thoughts
Search — in any and all of its forms — is still changing dramatically, mostly at AI’s hands. Competition is increasing. New platforms are popping up all the time. Regulators are tightening the reins on top performers. Classic websites’ familiar fare is evolving to offer novel features that perhaps their founders didn’t originally plan for, but became possible and even popular because of artificial intelligence.
It’s a busy time to be a marketer and SEO; intimidating and exciting, as well, depending on how you choose to chop it all up.
Part of me can see a future where search competition is so diverse that niche or audience-specific discovery platforms that serve entire and specific segments pop up. A Google for entrepreneurs. A Bing for best-selling authors. A DuckDuckGo for actual bird enthusiasts. Or hunters. Who knows, though. Anything is possible, right?
