ChatGPT Searches Individual Subreddits By Name

Aug 27, 2026 07:00 PM - 2 hours ago 6

Here is simply a hunt statement ChatGPT wrote for itself this week, consecutive retired of the traffic.

fast|site:reddit.com/r/whatnotapp seller tips Whatnot unrecorded selling|3650|reddit.com

Look astatine the path. It sounds r/whatnotapp, 1 subreddit, chosen by sanction earlier thing was fetched.

In the teardown I published connected the 21st, I documented ChatGPT asking for Reddit astatine the domain level, reddit.com successful the targeting slot pinch a 365-day window.

This goes a level deeper.

The exemplary picked the community, not the site, and gave it 3,650 days, a decade of threads.

It came backmost pinch 48 Reddit threads retired of 71 results successful that conversation. 68% of everything it retrieved.

reddit.com/r/whatnotapp/comments/1vqdlaq/tips_for_a_new_seller/ reddit.com/r/whatnotapp/comments/1r6mws8/advice_on_selling_on_whatnot/ reddit.com/r/whatnotapp/comments/1tzv075/new_to_whatnot_best_tips_for_selling_smocked/

Then it cited them.

Six of the 8 citations successful that reply went to r/whatnotapp threads. One went to Whatnot’s ain thief centre.

A Reddit spot sits adjacent to the proposal astir not starting valuable items astatine $1, adjacent to the constituent astir treating a watercourse arsenic entertainment, and adjacent to the 1 astir scheduling shows ahead.

Reddit Citation Is Query-Dependent, Not Switched Off

That matters because 4 days earlier I captured the other connected the aforesaid account.

QueryPages fetchedFrom RedditCitationsWon by Reddit

whatnot seller tips	71	48	8	6
best ai unrecorded chat support software	221	84	11	0

Four days apart, aforesaid account, some commercialized questions. One gave Reddit 3 quarters of the visible credit. The different fetched 84 threads and credited nary of them.

I published the 2nd 1 connected the 21st and publication it arsenic Reddit becoming an invisible input, feeding the verdicts while vendor pages cod the citations.

This seizure says that reference is excessively broad. It holds for that conversation. It doesn’t clasp arsenic a rule.

What separates them is worthy a guess, and it’s only a guess. Whatnot is simply a niche marketplace, and the applicable seller knowledge sits successful 1 subreddit and obscurity else. Live chat package is simply a vendor class pinch pricing pages, archiving and comparison sites competing for the aforesaid claims. When the honorable champion root is simply a forum, the forum still wins the citation.

Last week, I wrote that Reddit fell retired of ChatGPT’s citations alternatively than retired of the model, and that everything other needed different experiment.

This seizure is that experiment, and it has consequences for the 2 explanations doing the rounds.

Ryan Jones On Bing

Ryan recovered that Bing has stopped ranking Reddit for mean commercialized queries, and reasoned that since Bing sits down ChatGPT’s retrieval, Reddit went pinch it.

His study checks out, and it goes wider than his 4 examples. I ran them positive 2 of my ain done Bing, reference the rendered SERP alternatively than an API.

QueryReddit successful Bing’s results

best tv for sports	none
best toothbrush	none
whatnot seller tips	none
transformers movie review	none
best moving shoes	none
best crm for mini business	none

Not “not successful the apical 10.” The drawstring reddit.com appears zero times successful the HTML of each six pages, while Google puts Reddit astatine position 2 for 2 of them.

Whatever has happened astatine Bing is existent and worthy knowing connected its own.

The measurement that doesn’t past is an presumption the full manufacture has carried since 2023, that ChatGPT’s web results are Bing’s results.

I’ve repeated it myself successful talks. A excavation can’t incorporate what the scale doesn’t have, truthful if 68% of that excavation is Reddit and Bing’s page for the aforesaid query has none, the 2 aren’t 1 source.

Something reaches Reddit different way, whether that’s OpenAI’s ain index aliases the licensed provender from the Reddit deal.

Ryan’s Bing uncovering stands either way. It whitethorn good beryllium the aforesaid determination playing retired successful 2 places alternatively than 1 causing the other.

Jenny Halasz On Access

Jenny pointed astatine Reddit’s paid-access wall, and asked whether OpenAI’s personification agents are now getting the restricted robots.txt and losing entree to the content.

She’s correct astir the architecture. I checked it. Reddit’s nationalist robots.txt is Disallow: / for everyone, and the permissive type is the 1 served to verified partners, truthful the unfastened record is the cloaked one.

I spoofed GPTBot and Googlebot, and some get a 403 alternatively than a robots.txt astatine all.

That 403 is the absorbing part, because existent Googlebot is evidently not blocked from Reddit.

It tells you Reddit verifies the requesting IP against the published crawler ranges alternatively than trusting the personification supplier string. Both OpenAI and Google people those ranges, which is what makes the cheque possible.

The consequence is that cipher extracurricular OpenAI’s IP ranges tin spot what verified OpenAI agents receive. Jenny says arsenic overmuch successful her ain post, that she tin spoof a personification supplier but not an IP. So a user-agent trial shows the outsider’s position nary matter who runs it.

When I put this to her, she asked a bully question. She still gets the user-facing robots.txt pinch nary trouble, truthful was my trial moving from a US IP address?

It wasn’t. I’m connected a residential relationship successful the UAE. That turns retired to make the consequence cleaner alternatively than muddier, because each petition came from that aforesaid reside wrong the aforesaid infinitesimal and only the personification supplier changed.

Requested asResponse

Chrome connected macOS	200, the nationalist robots.txt
OAI-SearchBot	200
GPTBot	403
ChatGPT-User	403
Googlebot	403

Those each came from the aforesaid reside wrong a minute, truthful surface science can’t beryllium the adaptable there. Her consequence and excavation besides agree, since a normal browser UA returns 200 for maine too, truthful we were astir apt testing different things.

The statement worthy paying attraction to is OAI-SearchBot astatine 200 while GPTBot and ChatGPT-User get 403. Reddit is treating OpenAI’s ain agents otherwise from each other, which is simply a favoritism nary geographic mentation reaches.

Whatever robots.txt each supplier receives, that contented reached the model, existent and successful bulk, connected a query asked this week. Worth adding that robots.txt governs crawling anyway, and a licensed information provender isn’t crawling.

Auth On Old.reddit.com

A 3rd type of the entree thought has been going information too, that Reddit put a login wall connected old.reddit.com and made scraping harder. That portion is true. The r/whatnotapp thread ChatGPT cited redirects to /login/ connected old.reddit.com, while the aforesaid thread connected www.reddit.com returns 200 and serves normally.

It doesn’t scope this, though, because each Reddit URL successful the retrieval excavation is www.reddit.com. A wall connected a hostname ChatGPT ne'er requested isn’t successful the path. OpenAI’s licensing woody whitethorn make the full mobility moot anyway, and I can’t show from the payload whether those threads arrived done the Data API, OpenAI’s ain index, aliases a crawl of www. The hostname I tin show you, and it isn’t the gated one.

Either way, six cited threads reply the entree mobility from the different end. You can’t quote what you can’t reach.

There’s besides a timing problem for entree arsenic the cause. The gating Jenny describes has been successful spot for astir 2 years. The citation driblet is 3 weeks old.

On The Live Chat Query, The Drop Came After The Fetch

Both explanations are astir fetching, and fetching is working connected each query I’ve captured.

In the teardown, a unrecorded chat query pulled 84 Reddit threads retired of 221 results and cited nary of them. The pages arrived connected that mobility and past went uncredited, which is the lawsuit that still needs explaining. It’s besides the 1 that doesn’t repetition here, truthful immoderate governs crediting varies by query alternatively than moving 1 way.

That’s the measurement you can’t spot from a SERP aliases a robots.txt. The research it needs is simply a different 1 again. Hold a query constant, seizure the pool, and cheque whether the wording of the reply tracks the Reddit snippets that were fetched and ne'er credited. That would trial power directly, which is the point nary of america tin presently prove.

A Falling Citation Share And A Winning Subreddit

Reddit is being searched deliberately, down to the individual community, pinch the widest freshness windows I’ve seen ChatGPT assistance anything. It sewage cited heavy connected the mobility wherever a subreddit is the champion disposable source, and not astatine each connected the vendor-category mobility I checked, wherever pricing pages and comparison sites reply the aforesaid thing.

That’s a different problem from the 1 being discussed. The aggregate citation stock tin driblet sharply while Reddit keeps winning the queries it deserves to win, and some of those tin beryllium existent astatine once.

What I’m Not Claiming

Four queries, 1 account, 1 week. Two of the 4 didn’t propulsion immoderate Reddit, and 1 didn’t trigger a search. The wider constituent that Reddit turns up little than it utilized to is not successful dispute, and I can’t show you wherever the statement sits betwixt a query that earns Reddit citations and 1 that doesn’t.

Jenny called it a yes-and business pinch respective contributing factors, and I deliberation that’s person to correct than 1 mentation connected its own, excavation included. Bing’s rankings, Reddit’s entree rules, and immoderate governs crediting tin each beryllium happening astatine once.

The postulation changes wherever to look. The doorway is open, truthful the mobility moves to immoderate decided that 84 fetched threads were worthy reference and not worthy crediting connected the unrecorded chat query, erstwhile the 48 fetched present took six of the 8 citations.

Whether those uncredited threads still shape the reply is the portion I can’t beryllium from traffic, because power without a citation doesn’t time off a trace connected the unrecorded wire.

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