Reddit and AI Citations: What the September 2025 Disruption Taught Us About GEO

In September 2025, something dramatic happened to Reddit's visibility in AI search.

ChatGPT's Reddit citations collapsed from approximately 60% of responses to under 10% almost overnight. A Semrush study analyzing 230,000+ prompts across three months confirmed what many GEO practitioners suspected: AI citation sources are volatile, unpredictable, and subject to sudden shifts.

But here's what the data actually shows: Despite the dramatic drop, Reddit remains one of the most-cited domains across all major AI platforms. The September disruption taught us more about how AI systems source information than any other single event in 2025.

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What Loamly's Dataset Shows About Reddit

Across 1,528 companies (Jan 9-21, 2026), Reddit mentions correlate with AI visibility, especially on Claude:

Platform	Correlation With Reddit Mentions
ChatGPT	0.276
Claude	0.395
Gemini	0.131

Reddit also shows a clear lift at the top end. Companies in the top quartile of Reddit mentions average 1.25x higher AI visibility than the bottom quartile.

And the gap is large. 229 companies in the dataset have zero Reddit mentions. That is the simplest explanation for why Reddit-based visibility feels inconsistent: most brands are not present in the conversation at all.

The September 2025 Disruption: What Actually Happened

The widely discussed theory centers on Google removing its num=100 search parameter in mid-September. This change limited tools' ability to access URLs beyond the first page of search results.

According to Lily Ray, VP of SEO Strategy & Research at Amsive, this could explain the drop if ChatGPT relied on deeper Google rankings that often contain Reddit results. But the Semrush analysis suggests something more nuanced:

"I believe the main reason for the drop is an attempt to avoid over-citing on certain websites, to be less biased toward them, while generating answers. As a result, ChatGPT has become more resilient to manipulation attempts."

The event exposed how volatile AI visibility can be. One technical change cascaded into a fundamental shift in citation patterns.

Reddit's Current Position Across AI Platforms

Despite the ChatGPT drop, Semrush's analysis of 248,000 Reddit posts cited in AI responses shows Reddit remains a leading source:

Platform	Reddit Citation Share	Average Citation Position
SearchGPT	12.6%	Position 7
Google AI Mode	9%	Position 8.8
Perplexity	3.5%	Position 3
ChatGPT (post-September)	~10%	Varies

Key insight: Perplexity gives Reddit higher prominence. While only 3.5% of Perplexity answers include Reddit, those links appear much earlier (average position 3) in the response. This means Reddit mentions in Perplexity carry more weight per citation.

A separate Spotlight analysis of 3 million+ citations between August and October 2025 found that Perplexity maintained consistent Reddit citations throughout the disruption period, reaching peaks of 8.89% on September 13th—right when ChatGPT's Reddit citations were collapsing.

What Makes Reddit Content Get Cited by AI

Here's what the Semrush study of 248,000 Reddit posts reveals about citation patterns:

Q&A Threads Dominate

Over half of all cited Reddit content comes from Q&A-style threads. Comparison posts (product evaluations, "X vs Y" discussions) follow closely. Together, Q&A, comparison, and discussion formats make up nearly three-quarters of all cited content.

AI models favor these formats because they provide structured, conversational insights that are easy to parse and integrate into generated answers.

Engagement Doesn't Equal Visibility

This surprised me when I first saw the data: Most cited Reddit posts have fewer than 20 upvotes and 20 comments.

High engagement isn't the driver. Content structure and relevance are.

AI Paraphrases, Not Quotes

The similarity between AI responses and cited Reddit posts stays around 0.53-0.54, while similarity to the user's original prompt is just 0.04-0.05. This means AI tools are:

• Surfacing Reddit content based on topical relevance
• Paraphrasing and synthesizing rather than directly quoting
• Blending Reddit insights with other sources

The Implications for Your GEO Strategy

The Risk of Reddit-Only Strategies

Spotlight's analysis puts it bluntly: "Relying solely on Reddit for AI visibility is now a high-risk strategy."

The September disruption proved that platform-specific tactics can evaporate overnight. If your GEO strategy depends on Reddit discussions mentioning your brand favorably, you're building on shifting sand.

The Opportunity: Diversified Visibility

The data suggests a multi-platform approach:

1. Perplexity users still get value from Reddit — If Perplexity is part of your target model mix, Reddit content still drives visibility there

2. Prioritize owned channels — Your website, documentation, and official content give you direct control over discoverability

3. Monitor continuously — AI citation patterns change fast; what works today may not work next month

What Actually Gets Cited from Reddit

Based on the research, here's what to focus on if Reddit is part of your GEO strategy:

Do:

• Participate in genuine Q&A discussions
• Provide specific, helpful answers with concrete details
• Contribute to comparison threads ("What's better: X or Y?")
• Share real experiences and outcomes
• Structure responses clearly with bullet points when appropriate

Don't:

• Chase upvotes (engagement doesn't correlate with citations)
• Post promotional content (AI detects and avoids marketing-speak)
• Expect overnight results (AI models need time to index)
• Put all your eggs in one basket (diversify across platforms)

How We Built Loamly's Approach to Reddit Visibility

When I built Loamly, I didn't create a product to manipulate Reddit discussions. Instead, I focused on something more fundamental: actually solving a problem that people discuss on Reddit.

"How do I track AI traffic?" "Does ChatGPT send traffic to websites?" "What analytics tool shows AI referrals?"

These questions appear constantly on r/SEO, r/analytics, r/marketing, and niche subreddits. The best GEO strategy isn't gaming Reddit—it's building something worth discussing.

When your product genuinely helps people, organic mentions follow. When organic mentions exist across Reddit, AI systems eventually discover them. This is the slow game that actually works.

The Technical Reality: Why AI Visibility Is Volatile

The September 2025 disruption revealed a fundamental truth about generative search: the infrastructure is still being built.

Google changing a parameter broke how some AI models accessed Reddit content. Future changes—to API access, rate limits, content policies, or ranking algorithms—will create similar disruptions.

According to GEOHQ's AI SEO analysis, "the citation landscape is volatile. Platforms are actively fighting over access to data sources. Diversification matters more than ever."

This is why tools like Loamly matter. If you can't measure where your AI visibility comes from—which platforms cite you, which don't—you can't adapt when the ground shifts.

What to Track Going Forward

Based on the data, here's what I recommend monitoring:

1. Citation frequency by platform — Track Reddit mentions across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude separately
2. Citation position — Where in the AI response does Reddit content appear?
3. Content type distribution — Are your Q&A contributions being cited more than promotional content?
4. Competitive mentions — What Reddit discussions mention your competitors vs. your brand?

The Bottom Line

Reddit remains a significant source for AI citations, but its role has fundamentally changed. The September 2025 disruption proved that no single platform offers stable, predictable AI visibility.

The brands winning at GEO aren't the ones with the most Reddit karma. They're the ones building genuine authority across multiple platforms, creating content worth citing, and measuring what actually gets cited.

Reddit is part of the visibility ecosystem—not the whole ecosystem.

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Want to see where AI platforms are citing your brand—including Reddit discussions? Get your free AI visibility report and see which sources are actually driving your generative search presence.