I get a ton of newsletters!
I just got to see this in a newsletter from Fatstacksblog.com
After seeing this, my brain went on a wild rollercoaster ride of thoughts — no seatbelts attached!
- How will this change Google Search and SEO
- How will this move help Google’s HCU goals
- How will this help Google Generative AI change?
- With an increased HCU search traffic to reddit, did Google finally see the value in real content by people?
- Is that the REAL reason behind the deal?
- Is $60M too little?
- What will happen to the AI SEOs who are targeting REDDIT clusters
- How This Might Change UGC Market
- Which AI-Gaint will buy Quora or Quora content?
- Reddit user base and moderators most likely would dislike this move – How will they react?
- Will Reddit still go to IPO?
- How will grumpy moderators send its valuation estimates sliding down the slippery slope?
- How will Reddit improve its site search features?
- Should I still add REDDIT to my search queries?
I know that’s too many!
But this is BIG! So I think the long list is justified!
Considering my immediate concerns, I want to explore mostly SEO and marketing-related questions
- What Are Google’s Reasons for Buying Reddit Content?
- How Will This Reddit-Google $60M Deal Affect Search and SEOs?
What are Google’s Reasons?
I know way too many SEOs (mostly from Linkedin) that extract keywords of subreddits, use some fancy tools or Python scripts to cluster them, and call them content silos or topical clusters.
Most of them had success with this (me too) but before HCU.
What I am trying to say is that the content on REDDIT is invaluable for everyone. With Generative AI taking the foreground, all the posts on Reddit are way too valuable for Google, too.
With the recent bump in Reddit traffic after the September 2023 HCU update, Google might now have valid proof that Reddit content is valuable for most of its users. (Many SEOs will debate this but thinking in terms of a regular non-SEO Google user, I might like Reddit as much as some fancy blog with great UI)
Coming back to the topic, I believe Reddit content is valuable for Google’s new AI experiments. Getting Reddit content, both legally and technically, for 60M is no biggie for a trillion-dollar company.
Legally, they can openly train their AI and legally block other AI models from using Reddit.
Technically, I believe Google could scrape everything out of Reddit even without this deal. (If I could scrape a subreddit, they can all of them.) But getting access to the database side would probably ease the pain of organizing the unorganized Reddit content.
However, on paper, Google is saying they want to use this content in Google Products to help people with product recommendations and more.
How Will This Reddit-Google $60M Deal Affect Search and SEOs
I see this deal as Google’s shortcut to its DREAMY-HCU goals.
As far as I can remember, I can tell Google has been preaching this HCU philosophy
- for people by REAL people.
- Hidden gems in forums will be explored
- Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust.
I call it DREAMY because it is still not there yet.
Every time I type best-shared web hosting, I still see Forbes ranking at 2 for it.
The page does not have an author
It has a contributor who also did the following articles:
The author does not have EXPERIENCE,
The editor does not have any, either
The reason for this might be that Google has no measurement system that it can rely on to evaluate whether the opinions in Forbes or other websites are helpful or correct.
Probably in the top 10 or even the top 100, there are no other websites that might qualify the Google dream needs of EEAT for the topic.
It considers Forbes to be a high-authority domain and a highly trusted website. So it might have the right opinion compared to other websites in the hosting niche.
Getting access to Reddit API will probably help Google evaluate content on most topics from two HCU angles:
- Enhanced Signals – User interactions with opinions, product recommendations, or other types of content.
- Fresher information – Reddit is lively and has a huge user base of enthusiasts on almost everything. They tend to share their opinions and experiences almost instantly.
So Reddit content and the upvotes on Reddit might be that one of many missing pieces of Google’s Helpful content dream.