Reddit's citation drop is ChatGPT-only: 86% there, 11% on AI Overviews

Promptwatch put per-engine numbers to Reddit’s citation decline on August 20: its share of ChatGPT Search citations fell from an average 3.83% (July 18–August 7) to 0.52% (August 14–17), an 86.4% relative drop, while Google AI Overviews slipped 11.3% (2.37% to 2.10%) and AI Mode 30.5% (2.22% to 1.54%) across the same window. Promptwatch attributes the break to an August 8 change in how ChatGPT assembles its background search queries — use of the site: operator in fanout queries rose from 0.37% to 16.8%, roughly forty-six-fold — which it reads as the engine asking named sites directly rather than searching the open web. The company calls the size of the decline provisional and says it still cannot rule out a data-collection issue on its own end; OpenAI did not respond to Search Engine Journal’s request for comment.

The split matters because of where Reddit’s citations live. BrightEdge reported on August 16 that Google AI Overviews accounts for roughly 88% of Reddit’s AI citation volume, and that its surge there had plateaued at a level several times higher than a year earlier. On Promptwatch’s numbers that surface fell 11.3%. A decline reported widely as Reddit disappearing from AI search is, on the evidence published so far, one engine changing how it searches.