Reddit's stock dropped 36% over the past week after Reddit's CEO, Steve Huffman, confirmed Google Search traffic has been declining for the popular social media site. Of course, every SEO on this planet knew this would happen eventually, and it did.
Via CNBC, "Reddit CEO Steve Huffman told CNBC in an interview that the company’s shrinking search-referral traffic from Google went “down meaningfully in this quarter” due to the “shift to AI mode and AI overviews.” The traffic decline played a big role in Reddit’s planned efforts to require people to become logged-in users." “I think fundamentally that relationship between Google and the rest of the internet is evolving, and so for us, this means a continued focus on our core users that come to Reddit directly,” Huffman said. Previous Google algorithm changes would “kind of come and go,” Huffman said, but the company’s AI efforts represent “a fundamental shift in how the Google product works, from being a traffic driver to whatever’s going on now.”
Here is a screenshot of the Reddit stock chart:
It does not look as drastic as the Semrush chart showing the traffic Google sends Reddit and the keywords Reddit ranks for - but there are more ways to slice and dice these Semrush charts. You can break them out by section, by language, region, etc - so this is a simplified view:
Glenn Gabe noted on X, "I published a three-part series on Reddit's AI translations documenting the rise and fall of that content. Those translations (tens of millions of urls across many countries) took a big hit with the May 2026 core update and June spam update. Now Reddit is explaining more about that drop."
Google recently said Reddit gets no special preference in Google Search, after years and years of Reddit getting special placement in Google Search. But even in February 2025, Reddit has been complaning about Google not giving them enough traffic. Yes, Google has a content deal with Reddit but who knows if that will be renewed. But was it the Reddit AI-translated pages that hit them?
I mean, Reddit's CEO being so confident in saying anybody using Google at this point will end up on Reddit at some point made us all laugh. I said back then, "I am not an investment 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."
Forum discussion at X.
