Reddit Plans Mandatory Login Amid Decline in Google Referral Traffic
Reddit announced it will eventually require users to log in to view content, citing a significant drop in traffic referrals from Google after the launch of AI Overviews.
Reddit said it will eventually require all visitors to sign in to access the site, a shift from its long-standing policy of allowing anonymous browsing. The company attributed the move to a sharp decline in traffic referred from Google searches, which it linked to Google’s recent AI Overviews feature.
"I think fundamentally that relationship between Google and the rest of the internet is evolving, and so for us, this means a continued focus on our core users that come to Reddit directly," CEO Steve Huffman told CNBC.
In a letter to shareholders, Reddit executives noted that search-referral traffic fell markedly in the third quarter and continued to drop into early fourth quarter, with weekly referrals from Google decreasing by more than one million. The decline affected both logged-out and logged-in users, as well as app traffic, because search referrals often serve as a re-engagement channel.
The company said the change will be rolled out after testing begins outside the United States in the fourth quarter, but did not provide a specific timeline for a global rollout.