One of the best things about Reddit is going away, and you have Google to thank for it.
In its third-quarter earnings report released on Thursday, Reddit revealed plans to eventually force all users to log in to a Reddit account in order to fully view the site, per CNBC. That would be a dramatic change, as “the front page of the internet” has been available to browse without an account for a long, long time. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman explained to CNBC that this change was the result of shrinking search referral traffic from Google as a result of the tech giant’s introduction of AI Overviews, which have led to devastating traffic drops for many websites.
“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 told CNBC.
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And in a letter to shareholders, Reddit leaders wrote:
Our search referral traffic was down meaningfully in Q3, with the decline accelerating later in the quarter. The biggest impact was on logged-out and web traffic, but some of the impact flows through to logged-in and App traffic, since search referral is a common source of reengagement for users…These declines have continued into the early part of Q4. During October, we have seen that search traffic has dropped by more than 1 million referrals on average per week.
In other words, Reddit can no longer trust that Google will bring an influx of traffic from curious users who just need to figure out how to fix their sink or something. In accordance, Reddit wants to focus instead on people who actively choose to visit the site every day, aka direct traffic. Reddit did not say when this change will be made, though CNBC reported that testing will begin outside the United States in the fourth quarter of this year.
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