Reddit nuked all 4 subreddits from a 60-day GEO experiment, wiping 474 AI citations
gaganghotra_ · x · 2026-10-02
The team behind a 60-day Reddit GEO (generative engine optimization) experiment published a post-mortem: Reddit banned all 4 subreddits they built for the study under Content Policy Rule 2 (content manipulation), since their methodology openly used automation bots for upvotes and commenting.
The damage: 4 communities, 240 posts, 1,485 subscribers, 20 keyword rankings, and 474 AI citations — nothing restored.
Key findings:
- Owning the communities protected nothing; Reddit's systems still detected the bots and human participants.
- The experiment did prove GEO's power: in 60 days the new subreddits ranked 6th out of 126 established subreddits in total AI citations.
- ChatGPT 5.6 reduced Reddit's impact independently: on Aug 8, 2026, reddit.com fell 89% in ChatGPT citations (4.01% → 0.44%), unrelated to the bans.
The piece also shares 10 tips for doing Reddit GEO without getting banned: humans only, no bots, high-karma accounts, buyers over audience size. Anyone automating Reddit to game AI search should rethink the risk.
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