In recent months, talking about SEO, search and artificial intelligence, I have heard the same question several times: why does Reddit appear so often before company websites in Google results? The most common answer is also the simplest: “because Google pushes forums”. It is a convenient explanation and partly also true. But it is just a shortcut, because it confuses the effect with the cause.
If we really want to understand what is happening, it is worth taking a step back and shifting our gaze. Not so much about what Google is favoring, but why that kind of content works so well, both in traditional search and AI-based answer systems.
Reddit doesn’t rank because it “sounds human”
Another very popular explanation is that Reddit works because it “looks more human” than corporate websites. This reading also captures a piece of truth, but risks being misleading.
Search engines, and even more so AI systems, do not reward humanity as such. They do not have a preference for informal tone or colloquial language. What they reward is the ability to answer a question well, to retain the user, to clarify a problem instead of beating around the bush.
Reddit doesn’t win because it’s informal. It wins because, very often, it solves people’s questions better.
What really happens inside a Reddit thread that works
If we look at a Reddit thread that ranks well, the pattern is almost always the same. There is a question formulated as a real person would ask it, followed by direct answers, often based on experience. To these are added clarifications, corrections, different points of view.
This creates something that many business pages struggle to offer: broad, deep, layered intent coverage. Not just one answer, but multiple angles of the same problem. It is precisely this richness that generates real engagement and makes content semantically clear for both search engines and language models.
The boost forum exists, but it is not the explanation
In recent updates , Google has actually given more space to forums. After the Helpful Content Update, Reddit’s visibility has grown noticeably. To deny it would be naïve.
The point, however, is another. This does not make the system arbitrary. The so-called forum boost works because it amplifies content that already performs better in terms of user satisfaction. If threads didn’t really respond to queries, if they didn’t keep people on the page, if they didn’t clarify better than the alternatives, no system signal would hold up over time. The boost explains why visibility has increased, but it does not explain why those spaces are preferred by users.
The real problem is how many business sites are designed
At this point, the target is not Reddit. The target is us. Many business websites are still primarily designed to guide the user along a path: navigation, funnel, conversion. Much less to solve a problem directly and completely or to respond to a specific search intent.
The result is content that is often correct, well written, even authoritative, but built to accompany the user rather than to help him immediately. Broken answers, continuous references, and a certain reticence to be really explicit. These are pages that work for the company, but struggle to function as sources of knowledge.
Why copying Reddit is not the solution
Faced with this scenario, many brands are trying to do like Reddit: more informal tone, colloquial language, longer and longer FAQs. In most cases, however, the results are disappointing.
Because the point is not the style. It is the structure of information. Content works when it answers a precise question, does so directly, adds context and examples, and also clarifies the limits of the answer. If all this is missing, tone saves nothing.
From ranking to AI indexing
With the arrival of AI Overview and generative response systems, the discussion expands further. Here we are no longer talking only about ranking, but about semantic indexing.
Language models don’t read pages like a traditional search engine. They absorb them, break them down and reuse them to build responses. In this sense, Reddit is particularly effective because it offers naturally modular content: clear questions, autonomous answers, explicit limits and exceptions, comparison of opinions.
From an AI system’s perspective, a good thread looks more like a dataset of micro-answers than a classic editorial page.
SEO, GEO and indexing
To orient yourself in this scenario, it is useful to distinguish three different plans. SEO is about competing for visibility in results. GEO is about the probability of being quoted or synthesized in generative responses. AI indexing, on the other hand, concerns the ability to permanently enter the operational vocabulary of a model.
Reddit excels especially on this last level. Not because it’s designed for AI, but because it conveys knowledge naturally.
What changes for content creators today
If the goal is not just to rank, but to exist in the response layer, priorities change. Content that answers specific questions, clarifies when something works and when it doesn’t, separates facts and opinions, and can be cited without losing meaning becomes central.
You don’t need to write like a forum. We need to design content as reusable units of knowledge.
What the Reddit case really tells us
Reddit doesn’t rank because Google decided to push forums. Google pushes them because they work. And they work not only for SEO, but for the entire AI-powered indexing and response ecosystem.
The right question, today, is not how to sound like Reddit, but whether our content is clear, useful, and reliable enough to be absorbed by an AI system. This is where future visibility comes from.
