- Reddit's popularity on Google doubled in the U.S. between 2019 and 2024
- The app is the most searched social media platform in Washington, Oregon, and Massachusetts
- Its popularity is surging the most in the District of Columbia, known for its politically and socially engaged population, with a recorded increase of +151%
As Reddit navigates the complexities of its IPO, the platform’s popularity on Google has considerably increased in most U.S. states. This pattern emerges from an analysis made by DesignRush, which examined Google search trends for Reddit between Q4 2019 and Q1 2024.
The analysis reveals a nationwide upturn in interest for Reddit, with a notable average increase of 102% in Google Search Trends. This upturn spans 50 states, indicating a widespread growth in the platform's appeal among American netizens.
The most significant growth was recorded in the District of Columbia, followed by Alabama and Georgia.
As seen in the map above, Reddit is the most searched social media platform on Google in three states – Washington, Oregon, and Massachusetts.
Reddit’s increased popularity comes amid the company’s transition to public ownership.
In addition, Reddit's popularity is largely connected to its excessive number of threads showing on Google product review search results, dominating the discussions and forums' SERP feature.
As a network categorized around different interests while receiving billions of comments annually (2.84 billion in 2023) and being a valuable resource for searchers, it comes as no surprise the leading search engine prioritizes Reddit threads to provide its users with meaningful results.
"This analysis highlights that with the increased user interest, Google has been rewarding Reddit in organic search over the past months and years for becoming a more valuable platform,” said Gianluca Ferruggia, General Manager at DesignRush.
Methodology
The scoring involves collecting raw data from Google Trends for Q1 2024 and Q4 2019 – just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We evaluated and ranked the most popular social networking platforms – Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, X, Pinterest, and Reddit – based on their usage trends among the U.S. population.
The data was aggregated and cross-compared to draw insights.
Sources: Google Trends, Statista, Doofinder, Backlinko, and Search Engine Land.
