Reddit wants to be its own search engine after becoming a popular Google hack

Ben Schoon | Aug 1 2025 - 6:50 am PT

Adding “Reddit” to your Google search has been a common tactic in recent years and, unsurprisingly, Reddit knows this and is now making a push to be an actual search engine instead of just a search engine hack.

In the company’s Q2 2025 Shareholder Letter, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman not-so-subtly hints that Reddit is effectively building its own search engine, leaning on the platform’s “human voices” and citing survey results where a vast majority of people said “they believe some questions can only be answered by humans, as opposed to AI-generated summaries.”

With that in mind, Huffman explains that Reddit is “concentrating our resources” in a few core places, including “making Reddit a go-to search engine.” It seems that “Reddit Answers” will be a key piece of this puzzle.

The letter says:

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Reddit is one of the few platforms positioned to become a true search destination. We offer something special: a breadth of conversations and knowledge you can’t find anywhere else. Every week, hundreds of millions of people come to Reddit looking for advice, and we’re turning more of that intent into active users of Reddit’s native search. We’re seeing good traction here as our core search product now has 70 million weekly users and Reddit Answers has grown to 6 million, up from 1 million last quarter. Next, we’re expanding Reddit Answers globally, integrating it more deeply into the core search experience, and making search a central feature across Reddit. We’re pairing these product updates with marketing initiatives to increase awareness and adoption of Reddit Answers worldwide.

As mentioned, this doesn’t come as much of a surprise. User behavior has clearly shown that there’s a lot of value in getting answers from Reddit, so it was only a matter of time until Reddit put resources into focusing on being its own search engine.

The letter goes on to highlight that Reddit Answers has 6 million weekly active users with 10x growth in query volume just since Q1 of this year. That’s only a fraction of Reddit search as a whole, though, as over 70 million users are searching Reddit each week.