Reddit said on its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday that it is transitioning to a primarily “logged-in experience,” according to TechCrunch. The company described the move as a way to protect its data from AI scraping and to make licensing deals with model providers possible.
The change comes as search referrals fall. Reddit said they dropped sharply week after week on average in October, and warned that daily active users could decline by a low-double-digit percentage by next quarter if the trend continues.
In short
- Reddit is moving to a primarily logged-in experience, with tests in select markets outside the U.S. in Q4.
- No timeline exists for a worldwide rollout.
- U.S. daily active users fell from 53.2 million in Q2 to 50.7 million in Q3.
- Revenue rose by about half from a year earlier, reaching $895 million, and net income rose 74% to $283 million.
- The shift is tied to a new algorithmic “For You” feed.
What Reddit announced
A logged-in experience means the site would be primarily usable after login, rather than relying on logged-out visitors who arrive from search. Reddit has long drawn millions of users through Google, with many people adding the word “Reddit” to their queries.
The first tests will run in select markets outside the U.S. in the fourth quarter. Reddit has not set a date for rolling the change out to all users.
The company said being logged in does not mean giving up anonymity. Its “incognito mode,” the option to browse anonymously, is being rebuilt. Reddit also acknowledged that access to a logged-out front page is important.
Co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman wrote in a post on Reddit’s site: “I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the right decision for our platform and the right decision for our business.” He added that questions remain about where the boundaries between logged-in and logged-out experiences should sit.
The For You feed and the audience numbers
The shift is linked to a new algorithmic “For You” feed announced the day before. It combines posts from communities a user belongs to with interest-based recommendations.
Global daily active users were flat quarter-over-quarter. In the U.S., the figure dropped from 53.2 million in Q2 to 50.7 million in Q3, down slightly year-over-year.
Financial results
Revenue came in ahead of Wall Street’s expectations. Advertising revenue grew by about half to $847 million. Nonadvertising revenue, which includes the AI data-licensing business, grew by roughly a third from a year earlier, reaching $48 million.
Average revenue per daily active user in the U.S. rose by about half to $13.82. Globally it increased by more than a third compared with last year, to $6.87.
Logged-in users give more signals about interests and behavior, which helps target and personalize ads, and they are typically worth more to advertisers. Google, meanwhile, has revised its own privacy policy to add an ad personalization exception for AI Mode ads.
Search context
Reddit signed a data licensing agreement with Google in February 2024, reported at roughly 60 million dollars a year by PPC Land. That figure is not confirmed by other sources, and the earnings-call coverage from TechCrunch did not mention the deal.
PPC Land also reports that Google spokesperson Jennifer Kutz told The Verge that Reddit “gets no special preference” in ranking systems or AI search features. According to Search Engine Roundtable, as cited by PPC Land, Reddit has complained for over a year that Google does not send it enough traffic.
Google’s May 2026 core update was released May 21 and completed June 2. The June 2026 spam update began June 24. It finished two days later. Search consultant Glenn Gabe said Reddit was affected by both, with AI-translated pages in Germany and Italy trending downward, after Google had extended its spam policies to cover AI Overviews and AI Mode on May 15, 2026.
What it means for search marketers
For teams that rely on Reddit threads appearing in search results, the logged-in shift suggests such pages may become less openly reachable over time, though the scope of the change is not yet defined. Reddit has not said which content would sit behind login, and the boundary questions Huffman raised remain open.
The fourth-quarter tests in non-U.S. markets are the next concrete step.
Sources
Photo via TechCrunch