Reddit Shares Plunge Thirty Percent After Q3 Search Traffic Decline

Reddit shares just plummeted thirty percent on Friday. The company revealed its search traffic was down meaningfully in the third quarter. Google search dynamics are changing fast because of artificial intelligence. That shift is hitting digital platforms and publishers hard right now. The stock is now down sixty percent overall in twenty twenty-six. Here is the catch behind the crash. Revenue actually surged fifty-three percent to eight hundred ninety-five million dollars in the July-to-September period. Earnings per share jumped to one dollar and forty cents. Wall Street analysts actually loved those financial results. Investors panicked anyway over a softer forecast for the fourth quarter. Daily user levels fell two percent during the quarter. They could drop by a low-double-digit percentage from one hundred thirty million next. Alphabet lost five hundred billion in market value just a day earlier. Reddit told shareholders that AI search solves a totally different problem. They claim artificial intelligence still lacks context and nuance. People still want a real community experience.