It started with a skincare question.
Someone in a subreddit wanted to know about hypochlorous acid sprays for acne. A user named Primary-Taro4253 replied. They said they hadn’t tried the specific brand mentioned. Instead, they’d been using Honeydew Labs spray. It helped with redness. It had the National Eczema Association seal. The concentration was 0.02%.
The comment seemed helpful. Realistic even.
But a deeper look at the profile revealed the truth. Primary-Taro425 hadn’t just posted in that thread. They had praised Honeydew Labs across dozens of unrelated threads. Different subreddits. Random products. The consistency was unnatural. Was it a person? A bot? A marketing firm’s lazy campaign?
Someone in r/SkincareAddiction spotted the pattern. They warned others to stay away. A moderator moved quickly. The user was banned. Posts about that specific brand are now auto-filtered for review.
This isn’t an isolated incident. It’s the new normal.
The Rise of the “Answer Engine”
Reddit isn’t just a forum anymore. It’s the backbone of modern search.
Ten years ago, you added “Reddit” to your Google queries to escape SEO-stuffed blogs. Users wanted real talk. Unfiltered opinions. Now, Google leans on it hard. In May, Semrush data showed Reddit was the most cited domain by AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity’s AI Mode, and Google’s Gemini.
More than Wikipedia. More than news publishers.
This shift has created a gold rush for marketers. If you want to be cited by an AI, you need to be on Reddit. Brands and agencies are flooding the platform. They know that when AI models scrape data, they scrape Reddit. Being there means your brand gets a nod in an AI’s generated answer.
It’s a new form of search engine optimization. Some call it AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). Others say GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). The tactic is simple: generate enough brand-friendly noise to trick the algorithm.
The Spam Got Subtle
Old-school spam is easy to spot. It’s a glowing review with a tracked affiliate link. It’s a “before and after” photo stolen from a product listing.
AI-driven spam is different. It’s subtle.
Maya Adivi, a moderator for r/SkincareAddiction, sees the evolution. Moderating has always been about filtering promo content. But now? Even detailed study breakdowns look suspicious.
Marketers are gaming the system differently. A suspected bot might ask a broad question like: “How do you guys track your skincare routine?”
Then, a wave of comments suggests AI apps. The post looks like authentic engagement. Or it might start with: “I keep seeing ads for X. What’s the experience?”
The replies follow a template. Slightly self-deprecating. “Thought it would be too harsh, but it’s gentle.” The language mimics how a user prompts an AI chatbot.
“We’ve become more sophisticated too,” Adivi notes.
Brands that try to slip in are banned instantly. Secret promotion is persona non grata. When a marketing agency claimed to have “hijacked” the sub to push a Korean beauty brand, moderators nuked the thread and blacklisted the keywords.
The goal isn’t backlinks anymore. It’s mentions. One mention in an AI response is worth more than a dozen links on a dead blog.
The Human Filter
So how do you fight this?
Reddit moderators are unpaid volunteers. They’re also tired.
Complaints are popping up everywhere. r/CleaningTips is debating a product name ban. r/BuyItForLife is getting brigaded by ad bots. r/FoodNYC calls out brands commenting on old posts to game the system.
Even Reddit knows. In July, the company announced upgraded spam detection using AI and LLMs. The goal? Catch the “highly subtle, coordinated patterns of fake behavior.”
Jared Nelson, a senior director at Reddit, says they block 25,000 spam posts a day. That translates to 23 million blocked spam views. They look at account creation times. They scan for coordinated manipulation across threads. They rely on user reports.
They won’t share the exact signals, though. Why give bad actors a playbook?
Google also has rules. Spokesperson Jennifer Kutz insists Google doesn’t prefer Reddit. The search giant’s systems are designed to filter low-quality user-generated content. “We have strong protections,” she says. Results are kept 99% spam-free.
But the trust factor is weird. Reddit’s anonymous users are trusted because they seem to come from nowhere. LLMs love it because it feels human.
The Cost of Visibility
With roughly 40% of discussions on the site being commercial, Reddit is becoming a battleground.
Mike Moschella, a director at a PR firm, sees the trap. You can’t bullshit Reddit.
“The starting point of all business analytics,” Moschella says, “is this idea that you can have a better price… better service… better quality… but you can’t have all three.”
If a company claims to be the best in the universe, Reddit doesn’t buy it. WallStreetBets won’t buy it unless the fundamentals agree.
This forces brands to be honest. At least, ideally.
In r/loseit, moderator Dan (who asked for first name only) is fighting a similar war. He’s seen promotional spam for peptides, weight loss pills, and GLP-1 providers.
The telltale sign? Brands cram in keywords. They use exact product names. They over-explain. Normal users don’t talk like that.
“A normal person isn’t precious about how they talking about a new smartwatch,” Dan says. “Brands are cramming in keywords.”
He’s also seen more AI-generated content. Posts that end with “I’m curious to know…” are a dead giveaway.
Between auto-moderators and vigilant users, r/loseit filters out most of the noise. Dan wants it human-to-human. Outside the constant advertising.
The Aftermath
Self-promotional spam existed before AI. It always has.
But this era is different. Audiences are suspicious. They know they’re being tracked. They know the answers might be generated.
The practices that became commonplace in marketing are slowly trickling into every corner of the web. And the moderators are the ones left holding the broom.
It’s not a perfect system. It’s never been. But for now, the human element is the only thing standing between a genuine discussion and a bot farm.
Can Reddit fend it off? Maybe. For a while.
