AI search and analytics company PromptWatch is reporting a sharp drop in how often Reddit gets cited in ChatGPT Search down by more than 86%.
Reddit had been holding a fairly steady citation rate in ChatGPT, sitting at around 3.83% on average, according to PromptWatch. But something shifted starting August 14, and the numbers fell fast.
Here’s what PromptWatch found:
- Reddit’s initial average citation share: 3.83%
- Since August 14: Less than 1%
- Average between August 14–17: 0.52%
- Total decline: 86.4%
There’s no confirmed reason for this drop yet.
PromptWatch says this drop is mostly showing up in ChatGPT. Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode saw a small dip in Reddit citations too during the same window, but nothing close to what happened on ChatGPT’s side.
ChatGPT did roll out changes to its search process on August 8, but the timing doesn’t quite line up the real drop didn’t kick in until August 14, so that change probably isn’t what caused this.
This has actually happened before. Back in September 2025, Reddit citations on ChatGPT dropped in a similar way. It turned out that wasn’t Reddit’s fault, or OpenAI’s either Google had changed a search parameter that a bunch of tools, ChatGPT included, were relying on behind the scenes.
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