If you’ve been using Google Search recently, you may have noticed that it favors Reddit in its search results, even going so far as to attach “Reddit” to the search phrases. That isn’t everything. Reddit has received an extraordinary bump in search rankings from Google. In an unusual twist, Reddit has threatened to prevent Google from indexing its website. So, what’s the story? As we dug further, we discovered that there’s more to this tale than meets the eye.
In June 2022, Charlie Warzel published an essay in The Atlantic titled “The Open Secret of Google Search.” The post examined Google Search’s rise and fall, attempting to explain why the world’s most popular internet search engine is no longer what it once was. In his piece, Warzel described an emergency plumbing problem and how he resorted to Google for help. He did, however, characterize the search results he saw as “unhelpful.”
“A few weeks ago, my home had a septic-tank issue, which is just as bad as it sounds. As awful things started to burble up from my shower drain, I did what any smartphone-dependent person would do: I frantically Googled feces coming from the shower drain and decided what to do. I was greeted with a swarm of cookie-cutter websites, the majority of which were quickly prepared and were packed with so many repeating keywords that they were scarcely visible. Almost everything I discovered was useless, so we did the traditional thing and hired a professional. “The emergency passed, but I couldn’t stop thinking about those mediocre search results and how they typified a zombified internet wasteland,” Warzel wrote. 
Google Search’s Ascension and Fall
Warzel was ultimately able to remedy the plumbing problem. However, when he dug further into Google, he realized that many people were including “Reddit” in their search searches as a workaround to influence the search results and get direct access to content.
“Rather than scrolling through long posts littered with pop-up ads and paragraphs of barely coherent SEO chum to get to a review or a recipe, smart searchers got lively threads with testimonials from real people debating and interacting with one another.” Most people use the Reddit hack for practical reasons, but it’s also a minor act of protest—a way to poke fun at the Search Engine Optimization and Online Ad Industrial Complex while attempting to reach a more open and human-feeling area of the internet.”
Simply stated, the article claims that Google has lost part of its efficacy and that the only way to get significant search results is to include “Reddit” in your searches. This resulted in a tremendous public relations catastrophe for Google. Following the publication of the article, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms were abuzz with individuals supporting and opposing the concept that Google Search is actually defective and harmful.
How Google’s Helpful Content Update Increased Reddit Traffic
How did Google handle the situation? Well, it seems that, like many large firms facing considerable criticism, Google was compelled to respond. While there was no official confirmation from Google, around a year later, in September 2023, the business released a substantial upgrade known as “The Helpful Content Update.”
The original advice:
“Google Search’s helpful content system generates a signal used by our automated ranking systems to better ensure people see original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.”
The revised guidelines are as follows:
“Google Search’s helpful content system generates a signal used by our automated ranking systems to better ensure people see original, helpful content created for people in search results.”
What happened after Google’s Helpful Content Update? Google, on the other hand, greatly increased Reddit’s traffic, topping 2 billion visits. Google’s Helpful Content Update significantly increased Reddit’s exposure and position in the SERPs, inflicting a huge effect on many professional writers.
Reddit’s organic visitors increased from 120 million per month to 280 million, a 150% increase in organic traffic. Notably, traffic to other user-generated content (UGC) sites such as Quora, Medium, and YouTube increased significantly. Unfortunately, Reddit’s spike in traffic has resulted in considerable losses for independent bloggers, with some reporting declines ranging from 10% to 90%.
Meanwhile, Reddit users and moderators were quick to profit from the increased traffic. Spencer Haws, the creator of Niche Pursuits, discusses how Reddit moderators, who have a history of influencing what rises to the top on both Reddit and Google, are now harnessing organic traffic from Google to push affiliate items on the Reddit platform in the video below.
