While users followed the multi-episode drama between Reddit and Google, speculations arose about whether Google would remove Reddit from its SERPs or if Reddit would block itself from being indexed in the SERPs. This stemmed from the controversy surrounding Reddit’s boost in search rankings after the August 2023 Core Update, which resulted in a spam dump that most searchers didn’t want anyway.
And then, Reddit shocked everyone by selling its content to…guess who – Google!
Yes, even after almost one half of a year of public disagreements, Reddit sold its user content to Google for $60 million annually, specifically for AI training.
Rajan Patel
Vice President
Google now has access to Reddit’s Data API, which delivers real-time, structured, unique content from their large and dynamic platform. With the Reddit Data API, Google will now have efficient and structured access to fresher information, as well as enhanced signals that will help us better understand Reddit content and display, train on, and otherwise use it in the most accurate and relevant ways.
Reactions from the SEO industry were swift.
The irony of irrelevant, old Reddit posts outranking Google’s official announcement here pic.twitter.com/cCqiA0bCEk
— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) February 26, 2024
Google to use reddit to train #AI is such a terrible idea even redditors agree 💀 https://t.co/AGGroOYteS pic.twitter.com/htk43RhLbv
— Len (@lenraleigh) February 22, 2024
This news is also related to our recent SGE snippet research, which revealed Reddit to be one of the top sources appearing in SERPs. Reddit data is now being directly fed to Google; a clear signal that Reddit content will soon appear more in Google SERPs. Google likely would not have made such an investment if this wasn’t the case.
Anyway, who do you think is next in line for this data mining fair? Maybe Quora? Grab your seat and continue watching with us!
