New Delhi: Reddit has long relied on search engines like Google to bring visitors to its site, with many people searching for Reddit posts by adding “r/Reddit” to their Google searches. However, Reddit Inc. recently started blocking search engines, including Microsoft’s Bing, from accessing its posts and comments unless they agree to formal deals with Reddit. This change, which began last month, reflects Reddit’s concern about how its data is being used.
In an interview, Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman explained that the platform can no longer allow unrestricted access to its data because they need to control where and how it’s used. Now, companies and individuals must sign agreements with Reddit to access and display its content in search results.
Currently, Google is the only major search engine with access to Reddit content, thanks to a $60 million deal signed in February. This agreement allows Reddit content to appear in Google searches, but it doesn’t stop Reddit from making similar deals with other search engines.
In the past, search engines were important for Reddit, with Google driving 40% to 50% of Reddit’s daily traffic in the last two years. Reddit used to allow search engines to freely access its data because it benefited from the traffic they brought. However, Huffman noted that things have changed, as companies now use Reddit data for purposes like training AI models or reselling the information, instead of just linking back to Reddit.
Reddit has tried to make similar agreements with other search engines and AI companies, including Bing, Anthropic, and Perplexity, but no deals have been finalized. Microsoft mentioned that it follows the rules of websites that choose to restrict the use of their content with AI models, and Bing stopped accessing Reddit on July 1 after Reddit updated its robots.txt file to block crawling.
Perplexity, which uses web data to answer user questions, has invited Reddit to join its Publishers’ Program, but Reddit hasn’t agreed yet. Anthropic confirmed that it has stopped collecting data from Reddit since mid-May.
Microsoft-backed OpenAI did make a deal with Reddit in May, allowing Reddit content to be included in the ChatGPT chatbot. Altogether, Reddit’s recent data licensing deals, including those with Google and OpenAI, are valued at $203 million over the next two to three years.
