Can Reddit fend off a new wave of AI SEO spam?

AICloseAIPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All AIBusinessCloseBusinessPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All BusinessTechCloseTechPosts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All TechCan Reddit fend off a new wave of AI SEO spam?The era of AI-powered search has made Reddit mentions highly valuable. Subreddit moderators are catching brands trying to take advantage.by Mia SatoCloseMia SatoFeatures Writer, The VergePosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Mia SatoAug 4, 2026, 10:00 AM UTCLinkShareGiftIf you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.Image: Janet Mac for The VergeMia SatoCloseMia SatoFeatures Writer, The VergePosts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.FollowFollowSee All by Mia Sato is features writer with five years of experience covering the companies that shape technology and the people who use their tools.LinkShareGiftEarlier this year, a Reddit user had asked members of a skincare-focused subreddit if anyone had tried a specific hypochlorous acid spray, a product often used for acne. There were dozens of responses; one from a user named Primary-Taro4254 seemed innocuous enough, at least at first.“I haven’t personally tried [that brand] so I can’t fully compare, sorry,” they commented. “But I have been using a similar hypochlorous acid spray from Honeydew Labs and I’ve honestly really liked it.”Primary-Taro4254 helpfully shared their experience using the spray to calm their skin’s redness and irritation, and even threw in some of Honeydew Labs’ credentials: “One thing I noticed when comparing products is that Honeydew Labs uses a 0.02% hypochlorous acid concentration and it’s also accepted by the National Eczema Association, which made me feel a bit more confident trying it on sensitive skin.”But a closer look at Primary-Taro4254’s Reddit profile revealed that they apparently really, really liked the Honeydew Labs hypochlorous acid spray. It wasn’t just the one thread where they were praising the product — they had posted similar messages on threads about unrelated products as well as in other skincare-related subreddits. Was Primary-Taro4254 working for Honeydew Labs? Was it a marketing firm’s inartful promotional strategy? Was there a person behind it at all, or was it an automated spammer? Before long, a member of r/SkincareAddiction — a popular subreddit with more than 1 million weekly visitors — had caught on, telling others to “be aware of honeydew labs hypochlorous acid/ marketing bots.” Soon after, a moderator announced they had taken action on Primary-Taro4254 and would now automatically filter out Honeydew Labs posts for moderator review.(Honeydew Labs didn’t respond to a request for comment. Primary-Taro4254 didn’t respond to a message sent via Reddit.)It’s hard to overstate how central Reddit has become to how billions of people experience the web over the last several years. It has gone from a constellation of niche communities with a sometimes cantankerous user base to becoming perhaps the most urgently important website on the internet. First, users began adding “reddit” to the end of queries in order to wade through results littered with search engine optimization (SEO) junk, and in turn Google began linking to the site prominently. Now, Reddit has become significant to brands and marketers for another reason: AI chatbots love to cite it.According to data compiled for The Verge by Semrush, an SEO company owned by Adobe, Reddit was the most-cited domain in May by AI tools ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s Gemini and AI Mode — more than any news publisher, repositories of scholarly articles, and even Wikipedia. AI responses are also encroaching i