Reddit wants more of your browsing to happen after you log in. The company plans to test a primarily logged-in experience outside the U.S. as falling search referrals put pressure on its audience growth.
CEO Steve Huffman outlined the change on October 29, but said Reddit is still deciding where to draw the line. He wants people arriving from search or a shared link to be able to see the linked post.
Reddit still has to decide how far visitors can browse without an account. The company has not announced a universal login deadline.
Search referrals are falling faster
In its third-quarter shareholder letter, Reddit said the decline in search referrals accelerated late in the quarter. During October, search traffic dropped by more than one million referrals on average per week.
The biggest effect was on logged-out visitors and web traffic. But search also brings existing users back, so the decline reached logged-in and app activity too.
Reddit warned that, if the same rate of decline continues, its daily active audience could fall by a low-double-digit percentage in the fourth quarter from its current base of about 130 million. That is a conditional warning, not a confirmed loss.
Logged-in and app audiences nevertheless grew from the previous quarter. Reddit says those groups account for more than 80% of monetization and most engagement, explaining its push to make repeat visits a daily habit.
The letter puts the first tests in selected markets outside the U.S. in the fourth quarter. Their results will shape the wider rollout.
An account will not mean handing over your real name
Huffman said the change would not require your real-world identity. Reddit says it has rebuilt its app’s incognito mode and is re-releasing it. You can browse and search without affecting your logged-in account. That mode is read-only.
You can opt out of personalization while logged in, too. These are different controls: one concerns whether you need an account, another whether browsing affects that account, and another how Reddit personalizes your experience.
Reddit’s separate For You and Following feeds already give users a choice between recommendations and communities they joined. The planned login tests address access to Reddit itself.
Source: Reddit CEO Steve Huffman
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