Reddit’s open browsing could be coming to a close as login tests begin
Tests planned outside the US
The trials will help determine how much material people can view while logged out. Reddit will assess access through shared links, search results and its front page.
Protecting content from scraping
Huffman said the change is also meant to guard Reddit content against third-party scraping. He described the move as important to both the company and himself during the investor call.
Reddit updated its Robots Exclusion Policy in 2024 to add safeguards against unknown bots crawling the site. Last year, the company sued Anthropic, Perplexity and other data-mining firms, alleging they scraped Reddit comments for AI training.
Search referrals are declining
Huffman said search referrals to Reddit fell in the third quarter. In October, the platform received an average of more than 1 million fewer search referrals per week, he said.
Key points
- Reddit plans logged-in experience tests in select markets outside the US during the fourth quarter.
- The trials will assess logged-out access through shared links, search and Reddit’s front page.
- The company says restricting access could help protect its content from third-party scraping.
- Huffman said October search referrals fell by more than 1 million per week on average.