As you all mostly know, Reddit had an amazing earnings statement and its stock is up 25% since earnings day. But let's dig into the statements Steven Huffman, Reddit's CEO, made on that earnings call.
Here is the stock chart over the past 5 days or so:
As a reminder, just last quarter, Reddit blamed Google for weaker growth.
The official earnings transcript is now out and here are some statements that caught my eye. Of course, a lot of this is around Reddit wanting to be a search engine of its own.
And, in fact, I think for most of our users, this is already true, whether they're running a search on Reddit directly or using a third-party search product and coming to Reddit, which is just about anybody using Google at this point will end up on Reddit at some point. Those users also can be core Reddit users. And so it's not a stretch to say that our core users are already scrollers and seekers.
We saw a better traction as the quarter played out. And a combination of intentional work on the product side and marketing and user acquisition all benefited. Traffic from Google varies from week to week. But overall, it was a headwind in Q2.
Analyst Jason Helfstein asked:
One, we saw some of our Google testing expanded in more discussions in forum's results. Can you share any thoughts on that? It would seem like that could be a positive for you?And then second, any comments on how you think AI mode impacts or can drive traffic to Reddit? If AI mode was to kind of become a default versus AI Overviews?
Steven Huffman responded:
So, yes, Google is testing lots on their side.I think their product is evolving rapidly, and that affects everybody in the ecosystem. But I think you're right. We've seen some puts and takes there. But I think there's a couple of things that are foundational.
It's why the word Reddit is one of the most searched for terms on Google, because users around the internet go to Google with the intention of ending up on Reddit.
We all know how much we all see Google show Reddit results right now. I am not an investement expert, but it seems like a dangerous stock to me... I mean, we've seen Google rank Yahoo Answers, Wikipedia, and so many other sites incredibly well over the years and one day, Google can drop them and poof, that is a huge chunk of traffic that is gone. See my past coverage of Reddit here.
In any event, I know a lot of you wanted me to pull these quotes out and here you go.
Update: This shows the traffic:
Reddit's CEO: "Traffic from Google varies from week to week. But overall, it was a headwind in Q2."
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 4, 2025
Regarding "headwind", check out international visibility trending for Reddit. I'm seeing that across tools... Not great for them. That can change, and jump back up, but I'm seeing… https://t.co/wprTpErZTc pic.twitter.com/vGbm8kwpFN
Forum discussion at X.
