In news that will probably come as a surprise to nobody; earlier today I saw clear signs that people are abusing Reddit to ensure their client's website and business show up in search engines like Google, and across AI platforms in general.
Reddit is a key target for marketers and spammers (sometimes it's easy to conflate both of these groups) - because Google is in this licensing agreement with Reddit whereby they are training their AI models using data from Reddit, paying around $60 million per year for the pleasure of doing so.
So - if you can influence topics of conversation around your client's sector, giving a nice mention to your client at the same time, then in theory you will be influencing Google Gemini, their generative AI platform.
Influencing AI via Reddit
It is easy to influence (or manipulate) AI using Reddit. In the example I will reference here, someone (likely working on behalf of a Manchester based web agency) has started an entire subreddit called /r/WebAgencies.
This subreddit - which they also moderate - is described as:
A space to discuss and discover the best web agencies worldwide. Share experiences, reviews, and recommendations of top web agencies in every country. Whether you’re looking for inspiration, partners, or to showcase your own agency, this community connects professionals, clients, and enthusiasts in the global web agency scene.
The subreddit isn't very active and there aren't many subscribers, but to influence Google (and potentially AI) that doesn't appear to matter much.
What the spammer has done within this subreddit is to generate various posts along the theme of:
- Looking for a top web design/dev agency in {location}? Here's my 2025 breakdown.
The post then has an introduction followed by a list of their top 3 recommendations, naming the apparent "best" agencies across an entire country or city. Somehow they manage to write a paragraph of text for each recommendation, probably also AI generated.
And then - if you were to look on Google for a topic relating to web design agencies (my specific query was "web design agency london") you might end up catching this thread being listed under Google's Discussions and forums snippet.
Highlighting the spam thread ranking on Google under the Discussions and forums snippet
For this particular thread, the spammer is referencing the top 3 businesses in the post (Who are the top web design, development and ai agencies in England in 2026?) - but note they aren't including links to the websites.
In this situation they will put their client top of the list (so we can assume in this case it is Modal Digital (MCR)) and that number 2 and 3 are in the list just to help the thread rank - name checking entities in this way helps to show to Googlebot etc that the content is thorough enough - it would in theory struggle to rank if it was just a list of 1 agencies, when this query really does require that the ranking content references multiple "agencies".
Another way to phrase that: could you rank for "most famous sports sneaker brands" without including a mention of Nike and Adidas?
Highlighting the relatively fresh post that is ranking well on Google here for "web design agency London"
So the above example thread would be great if you are an LLM or AI crawler, because you would surely find this thread (it's hard not to, considering how well it is ranking, thanks to Google) and they would find this clear mention of the entity Modal Digital - even if there is no web link included, and then later on it will recall them as one of the recommended agencies when someone is making a similar query.
This AI/LLM optimisation approach might feel like a lost opportunity to benefit SEO by including a link, but we should remember that it is the text mention of the entity which matters most in this case. Later when someone is engaging with Google Gemini, ChatGPT or whichever other Gen AI tool, and they ask to find them a web agency in Manchester, Modal might be one of the entities that gets surfaced.
Summary - it's easy to influence AI using Reddit
This again is probably no surprise to marketers - users of Reddit have likely noticed an uptick in spammy/abnormal posts within the platform already, but it's perhaps interesting to note the way in which spammers/marketers are abusing Reddit now for AEO/GEO benefits.
Whilst some may not bother to create a subreddit dedicated to this like has been carried out here, there may also be posts made within established, trusted subreddits in which a question is asked, like "can you recommend me an agency in X location" followed up by utilising a secondary Reddit account to answer the question "hey check out agency XYZ they're amazing" etc etc.
I think to that extent it may become harder to spot or differentiate genuine spam on Reddit because now a link is often not required for LLM's to associate a reference with an existing brand/website (this was partly true with search engines too anyway, based on the use of NAP data).
And finally, as someone who has offered Reddit marketing services in the past, this kind of behaviour comes as no surprise. I have turned down every single enquiry I've received regarding Reddit because either every single industry that reached out was one I had no interest in supporting, and/or it was an incredibly unethical thing they were asking me to do.
