Is Reddit's share of AI citations growing?

A page citation is one cited page appearing in one AI answer. Reddit supplied 68,818 of 1,409,816 page citations in the first window and 74,519 of 1,950,517 in the second. Its share fell from 4.8813% to 3.8205%, a drop of 1.0608 percentage points. YouTube moved from 54,439 citations, or 3.8614%, to 101,109, or 5.1837%, a gain of 1.3223 points.

A fixed source ranking misses this change. Track source share on the same prompts over time before treating a citation lead as lasting. The result refines earlier studies that ranked Reddit or YouTube from one combined cut; it does not contradict studies with different engines, prompts, or different bases for their percentages.

All social sources supplied 160,055 of 1,409,816 page citations in the first window, or 11.3529%, and 225,999 of 1,950,517 in the second, or 11.5866%. Reddit and YouTube together moved from 8.7428% to 9.0042%. The change for all social sources was 0.2337 percentage points.

The headline is mainly a change inside the social-source mix, not broad growth in social citations. A marketer should Compare a single source with the whole social group before concluding that an entire channel is gaining or losing influence.

In the later window, YouTube supplied 100,782 of 1,447,772 Google AI Mode page citations, or 6.9612%, while Reddit supplied 46,828, or 3.2345%. ChatGPT Search showed the reverse: Reddit supplied 27,691 of 502,745 citations, or 5.5080%, while YouTube supplied 327, or 0.0650%. The same engine pattern was present in the first window.

A combined Reddit-versus-YouTube rate hides two different source systems. Audit each engine separately before choosing which community or video pages to study, improve, or monitor.

In the later window, 22 industry groups had at least 20,000 page citations. YouTube had the higher share in 18 groups and Reddit in four. In Artificial Intelligence, YouTube supplied 3,637 of 55,180 citations, or 6.5912%, while Reddit supplied 1,823, or 3.3037%. In Software, YouTube was at 6.6213% and Reddit at 4.5772% across 89,574 citations.

The overall crossover is broad but not universal. Compare the source shares for a brand's industry before prioritizing Reddit threads or YouTube videos. These rates describe what we saw and show where to audit; they do not show that either source caused an AI recommendation.

In the later window, YouTube supplied 101,109 page citations, or 5.1837%, and Reddit supplied 74,519, or 3.8205%. LinkedIn followed at 16,052 citations, or 0.8230%. Facebook was at 0.7309%, Instagram at 0.6222%, and TikTok at 0.0710%.

The exact platform matters more than a broad social label. Reddit and YouTube accounted for most social citations in this cut, so channel-level reporting should preserve their separate trends instead of blending them into one total.

The leading Reddit page in the later window was a Product Marketing thread about tools for monitoring AI search visibility, with 400 citations across 47 prompts. The leading YouTube video was about why a business does not appear in AI search, with 174 citations across 15 prompts. The table lists four leading pages from each source with cleaned, sentence-case titles.

Domain share does not identify the content that AI answers use. Audit the exact threads and videos behind important prompts, then check whether the page is relevant and accurate before treating its citation count as useful coverage.

Reddit appeared in 48,910 of 131,771 cited answers in the first window, or 37.1174%, and 57,405 of 212,544 in the second, or 27.0085%. YouTube moved from 29,148 answers, or 22.1202%, to 48,875, or 22.9952%. Reddit still appeared in more cited answers even after YouTube gained the larger share of page citations.

The share of answers citing a source and the share of citations are different measures. YouTube can supply more cited pages while Reddit appears in more answers. Check what a number is a share of before comparing an outside statistic with this study.

The matched prompts are the prompts that ran on both engines in both 24-day windows. That kept 15,769 of 17,000 tracked organic prompts and excluded 1,231 that did not run in every window. The all-prompt sensitivity check produced the same direction and crossover: Reddit moved from 4.8958% to 3.7951%, while YouTube moved from 3.8455% to 5.1268%.

Using the same prompts protects the comparison from growth in the number of prompts we track. It does not make the prompts a random sample of all AI use. The study leaves 98,593 citations we could not categorize in the overall total and does not claim that source citations caused a recommendation.

Reddit lost 1.0608 percentage points of page-citation share while YouTube gained 1.3223 points on the same prompts. The nearly flat social-source share, the opposite engine patterns, and the 18-of-22 industry result show why one blended source rank is incomplete.

Track Reddit and YouTube share separately for each engine and industry. Save the exact threads and videos cited for important prompts. Recheck the same set of prompts on a regular schedule, and Compare both the share of citations and the share of answers citing each source before acting on a change.