Reddit's Share of ChatGPT Search Citations Crashed 86% in Four Days, Promptwatch Data Shows
TLDR
Reddit's citations in ChatGPT Search dropped from ~3.8% to ~0.5% between August 8 and 17, per Promptwatch monitoring data, while Google's AI products showed only gradual declines.
Optimixed Overview
Optimixed's original report on this story.
Promptwatch reported a dramatic 86.4% decline in Reddit's share of ChatGPT Search citations over four days in mid-August, with the platform's citation rate falling from roughly 3.8% to below 1%. The collapse occurred in two stages—an initial dip on August 8 coinciding with changes to ChatGPT's query behavior, followed by a steeper drop on August 14—though Promptwatch cautioned the data doesn't explain the underlying cause. By contrast, Reddit's presence in Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode declined only gradually across the same period, underscoring how citation patterns can shift rapidly and unpredictably across different AI platforms.