Reddit search referrals fell by more than one million on average a week in October, a drop chief executive Steve Huffman tied to Google’s AI Mode and AI Overviews. On Friday, October 30, Mint reported shares down 29% to $91.30 and said a close at that level could be the worst single-day fall since the March 2024 stock-market debut; Decrypt reported a 30.44% drop to $90.15.
Key Takeaways
- October search referrals fell by more than one million a week on average.
- Shares fell about 29% to 30% on Friday, October 30.
- Huffman said Google AI Mode does not drive traffic.
- Daily users could fall by a low double-digit percentage in Q4.
How Reddit Search Referrals Collapsed
On the October 29, 2026 earnings call, The Verge reported, Huffman said search traffic had “dropped by more than 1 million referrals on average per week.” Decrypt and Mint carried the same figure, and Decrypt said the slide sped up late in the third quarter. If it continues, daily active users could fall by a low double-digit percentage in the fourth quarter from about 130 million.
“The reality is, AI Mode does not drive traffic,” he said, according to The Verge. “Not for us, and not to anybody, as far as I know. That’s just a fundamental shift in how Google works. It used to be a traffic driver, now it’s not.”
He said, as The Verge reported, that AI Overviews and AI Mode have “evolved a lot” and, at a “minimum,” push “everyone down the search page.” Reddit is still a “top search term in Google,” and Google is “crawling us as hard as ever,” but “not sending them to Reddit the way they used to.” He said Reddit believes machine-translated content is being ranked lower, which would primarily affect the company outside the US.
Revenue Beat, User Miss, Lower Forecast
Mint reported third-quarter revenue of $895 million, up 53% and above a Bloomberg estimate of $869.6 million. Decrypt reported ad revenue of $847 million, up 54%, net income of $283 million, and diluted earnings of $1.40, up 75% and ahead of a $1.33 consensus. Global daily active unique visitors were 130.3 million, up 12% but short of about 134 million; U.S. daily actives fell 2% to 50.7 million.
Management forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $1 billion to $1.03 billion, below about $1.05 billion expected. Mint said analysts cut price targets, warning that weaker search referrals could pressure user growth and later ad revenue.
| Metric | Reported result | Estimate in sources |
|---|---|---|
| Q3 revenue | $895 million, up 53% | $869.6 million |
| Net income | $283 million | $272.6 million |
| Diluted earnings per share | $1.40, up 75% | $1.33 |
| Adjusted EBITDA | $402 million, up 70% | $398.5 million |
| Global daily actives | 130.3 million, up 12% | About 134 million |
| Q4 revenue outlook | $1 billion to $1.03 billion | About $1.05 billion |
Login Walls, Feeds, and Data Deals
The Verge reported Reddit is trying to become a “direct, sticky, daily destination.” It introduced a For You feed and, in August, began testing AI that turns posts into short videos. The Verge also reported that Reddit will force everyone to log in, which Huffman claims will be “better for user experience, better for our ads business, is more in line with safety regulations, and more protective of Reddit data.” Decrypt said tests of a primarily logged-in experience will begin in selected markets outside the U.S. in the fourth quarter.
Decrypt reported a February 2024 deal, described as $60 million a year, giving Google access to Reddit discussions for model training, then a similar partnership with OpenAI. Mint reported cloud agreements with Amazon Web Services and Google extended through 2029, with commitments of $880 million and $580 million over three years. The Verge noted Google has said it is seeing “lower monetization” in AI Mode ads while bringing AI ads to more countries.
What the Referral Drop Means for Publishers
The following is analysis, not a new disclosure. Reddit is not a newsroom, but the referral pattern is the one publishers see when an answer replaces the click. Editors should test his “not for us, and not to anybody, as far as I know” claim in their own logs.
Three reported facts are worth tracking:
- Crawl volume is not visit volume: Google still crawls Reddit while weekly referrals fall.
- A login requirement may support ads, safety rules, and data protection, and it may also cut casual visits search used to restart.
- A reported licensing fee from the company summarizing the archive did not, on these reported results, keep the referral.
Newsrooms testing whether answers surface their reporting, including Daily Mail generative-engine tests ahead of an AI visibility product, are measuring citation against the visit.
