Show notes
E1142: Reddit citations in ChatGPT just totally collapsed. Promptwatch data shows Reddit's share of ChatGPT citations dropping dramatically in August, falling to below 0.5% after previously sitting around 3-4%. This is the third major Reddit citation drop we've seen, and it raises a bigger question for SEOs: what happens when an AI search strategy built around one platform can disappear overnight? Klaas Foppen, co-founder of Promptwatch, joins me to break down what changed, what may have caused it, and what SEOs should do next. We cover: - Why Reddit citations suddenly fell in ChatGPT - The difference between an AI citation, source, mention, and visibility - Why Reddit can still be accessed by ChatGPT even though it is being cited far less - The August 8 query fan-out change that appears to have reduced Reddit citations - The much larger August 14 drop that Klaas believes may have involved a more deliberate adjustment - Why nobody outside OpenAI knows whether licensing negotiations, user feedback, search quality, or another factor caused the change - How this same dramatic Reddit decline is not showing up across Google AI Overviews and AI Mode - Why SEOs should not abandon Reddit just because ChatGPT is citing it less - The danger of building an entire AI search strategy around Reddit, parasite SEO, or any single third-party platform - Why your own website remains the part of your SEO and AI-search presence that you control - How technical SEO, complete product information, feature pages, comparison pages, landing pages, and fresh content can affect AI visibility - Why listicles are still frequently used for commercial-intent AI queries - Why product pages and landing pages may become more important as AI systems increasingly search official websites directly - Why old-school evergreen informational content may be less valuable when an LLM already knows the answer without searching the web - How OpenAI, Bing, Meta, Exa, and other companies developing or using different search indexes could reshape SEO - Why new AI search indexes could create opportunities for SEOs before their spam detection becomes as sophisticated as Google's - Whether PDFs, research papers, and sites like arXiv could become important sources for AI systems and training data - Why AI search is much less stable than traditional SEO and why tactics that work today can change very quickly The biggest takeaway is not that Reddit is dead. It's that "post on Reddit and get cited by ChatGPT" was never a durable AI search strategy. Reddit can still be a valuable marketing channel. But if your visibility depends entirely on Reddit, another social platform, or one AI search tactic, a single change can wipe out much of that advantage. Build the website. Get the technical fundamentals right. Publish the information customers and AI systems need. Earn mentions across multiple sources. And treat AI search as a moving system that needs to be watched rather than a fixed formula. ⭐️ Klaas Foppen on 𝕏 - https://x.com/forgebitz ⭐️ Klaas Foppen on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/klaas-foppen/ ⭐️ Promptwatch - https://promptwatch.com/ 💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/ 00:00 Reddit Citations Vanish 00:38 Why The Drop Happened 02:11 Citations Vs Mentions 05:04 Deals And Partnerships 09:25 Other LLMs And User Backlash 11:10 Will Reddit Return 12:39 Diversify Your Marketing 14:02 Future Search Index Shakeup 19:53 What Content Works Now 23:09 Training Data And PDFs 26:10 Query Fanout Direction 27:23 On-Site SEO Foundations 29:53 Promptwatch New Automation 31:59 Wrap Up And Thanks The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #seo