Growtika
    Original Research

    Half of Reddit's Top Google Rankings Have Zero Backlinks

    We pulled 8,743 Reddit pages with 5,000+ monthly organic visits from Google. The data contradicts most of what Google tells publishers about how rankings work.

    By Yuval HaleviFebruary 20269 min read

    Reddit gets over a billion organic visits per month from Google in the US alone. That's not news. What nobody's done is look at what those pages actually are, how many backlinks they have, and what keywords they rank for.

    So we did. Every Reddit page getting 5,000+ monthly organic visits in the US. 8,743 pages. 121 million monthly visits. Here's what the data shows.

    TL;DR

    • 53% of Reddit's top-ranking pages (4,695) have zero referring domains. They pull 64M monthly visits on domain authority alone.
    • Reddit ranks #1 for "barnes and noble" with a post asking if the store should still exist. #3 for "target" with a post about a store running out of milk.
    • A cancelled-flights complaint on r/delta ranks #2 for "delta airlines" (1.79M volume). Zero backlinks.
    • Anonymous posts rank in the top 3 for "best cheap car insurance," "loans for bad credit," and "mortgage rates today."
    • Even after removing AI Overviews, Featured Snippets, and Discussions carousels, Reddit still pulls 55M visits. 64% of those pages have zero backlinks.

    Methodology

    Data pulled from Ahrefs on February 26, 2026. We exported all reddit.com pages containing /r/ with 5,000+ estimated monthly organic traffic in the US. This returned 8,743 pages across 3,131 subreddits totaling 120.9M visits. A second export excluded pages whose keywords trigger AI Overviews, Featured Snippets, or Discussions SERP features, returning 3,132 pages with 55M visits. All figures are US estimates.

    The Dataset: 121M Visits From 8,743 Pages

    8,743
    Pages with 5K+ monthly traffic
    121M
    Monthly organic visits (US)
    3,131
    Unique subreddits

    No single subreddit dominates. r/ChatGPT leads at 3.9% of total traffic. After that it fragments fast: r/NoStupidQuestions (1.7%), r/nba (1.6%), r/nfl (1.0%), r/movies (1.0%). Financial subreddits like r/personalfinance and r/CreditCards sit in the top 15 alongside entertainment and sports.

    The long tail is the story. Thousands of niche subreddits, each pulling a slice, adding up to over a billion annualized visits.

    53% of These Pages Have Zero Referring Domains

    Of the 8,743 pages, 4,695 have exactly zero referring domains. No website on the internet links to them. They pull 64 million monthly visits from Google on domain authority alone.

    Pages with zero backlinks pull more Google traffic than pages with backlinks
    Estimated monthly organic visits from Google to Reddit pages with 5,000+ traffic (US)Zero referring domains4,695 pages (53%)64M visits1+ referring domains4,048 pages (47%)57M visitsReddit's Domain Rating: 92. No other signal is needed. Pages with zero external validationoutperform pages that earned backlinks.

    Google's ranking system was built on the idea that backlinks are votes of confidence. If other sites link to a page, it's probably worth ranking. PageRank was designed around this principle.

    More than half of Reddit's highest-traffic pages have zero votes. They rank because reddit.com has a Domain Rating of 92, and that authority flows to every page, regardless of whether anyone thought the content was worth linking to.

    The Rankings That Shouldn't Exist

    Zero backlinks is the stat. What these pages actually rank for is the story.

    KeywordMonthly Vol.What Google ShowsPosTrafficRef. Domains
    target17,280,000r/CambridgeMA: "Target Central Square running out of milk"#3126,4150
    home depot16,970,000r/HomeDepot: "Don't buy from Home Depot worst experience"#346,8880
    delta airlines1,790,000r/delta: "All flights to NY cancelled today"#292,9010
    microsoft 3651,870,000r/technology: "Microsoft says bug causes Copilot to summarize..."#391,3467
    barnes and noble1,070,000r/NoStupidQuestions: "How are stores like Barnes & Noble still in business?"#1885,5190
    ethereum price1,750,000r/ethtrader: "ETH is so hard undervalued I can't even"#4107,5270
    knowledge base software732,000r/SoftwareEngineering: "What tool do you use for internal knowledge base?"#2219,3852
    online course platforms978,000r/onlinecourses: "Course creators, what platforms do you like best?"#3140,8091
    ralphs185,000r/burbank: "Ralphs on Buena Vista"#1130,3180

    "Target Central Square running out of milk" ranks #3 for the word "target." 17.28 million monthly searches. Most people searching this want target.com. Google shows them a post about a Cambridge store that ran low on dairy. Zero referring domains.

    "All flights to NY cancelled today" on r/delta ranks #2 for "delta airlines." A traveler's complaint outranks Delta's own flight booking page for 1.79 million monthly searches. Zero backlinks.

    "ETH is so hard undervalued I can't even" ranks #4 for "ethereum price." Not a price chart. Not a financial analysis. A one-line opinion from an anonymous Redditor, ranking for a 1.75M-volume financial keyword.

    And it's not just brands. SaaS companies are losing commercial keywords to Reddit threads. "What tool do you use for internal knowledge base?" outranks every knowledge base vendor's landing page. "Course creators, what platforms do you like best?" outranks Teachable, Thinkific, and Kajabi.

    On ranking volatility

    Individual posts rotate in and out. By the time you read this, some specific URLs may have moved. The pattern persists across every data pull: zero-backlink Reddit posts occupy top positions for brand and high-volume keywords.

    Anonymous Posts Rank for Financial Advice

    Google's Quality Rater Guidelines say YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) content requires the highest trust standards. Content about financial decisions should come from credible, identifiable sources.

    Here's what's actually ranking.

    KeywordVolumeSubredditPosTraffic
    best cheap car insurance6,400r/Insurance_Companies#275,046
    best credit cards for travel36,000r/CreditCards#360,061
    best high yield savings account96,000r/TheMoneyGuy#353,239
    best life insurance companies19,000r/LifeInsurance#239,939
    auto insurance quotes366,000r/Frugal#741,055
    how to buy a house78,000r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer#237,974
    loans for bad credit110,000r/povertyfinance#719,461
    mortgage rates today836,000r/StockMarket#518,804
    how to invest in s&p 50012,000r/fidelityinvestments#218,163
    best bank for small business7,300r/smallbusiness#242,370

    Combined YMYL traffic across insurance, credit cards, banking, loans, and real estate keywords: approximately 2.26 million monthly visits to anonymous Reddit posts.

    Google's guidelines ask: "Who created this content?" For these rankings, the answer is: we don't know. The person recommending car insurance on r/Insurance_Companies could be a licensed broker or a teenager. Google's ranking system doesn't distinguish between the two. It sees reddit.com.

    Reddit Dominates "Best X" Commercial Keywords

    The keywords where someone is about to open their wallet. These are supposed to favor pages with editorial standards, comparison data, and transparent review methodology.

    KeywordVolumeSubredditPosTraffic
    best screen recorders6,600r/windows#2123,676
    best free vpn alternatives17,000r/VPN#1106,742
    best wireless earbuds under $2001,190,000r/Earbuds#5100,450
    gifts for dad74,000r/Gifts#299,483
    how to make money online52,000r/sidehustle#271,642
    best dating apps52,000r/OnlineDating#253,705
    best remote jobs19,000r/RemoteJobs#248,078
    best rewards credit card20,000r/personalfinance#247,299
    qled vs oled47,000r/samsung#240,875
    best water filtration system43,000r/OffGrid#538,107

    Every one of these queries has dozens of purpose-built review sites competing for them. Wirecutter. CNET. NerdWallet. PCMag. They have editorial teams, testing labs, and disclosure policies. Reddit has a thread where someone asked a question and other anonymous users answered.

    Google ranked the thread higher.

    Strip the SERP Features. Reddit Still Dominates.

    A fair counterargument: Google gives Reddit preferential SERP treatment. The "Discussions and Forums" carousel. Featured Snippets that pull Reddit answers. AI Overviews citing Reddit threads. Maybe that explains the traffic.

    So we ran a second export. Same filters, but we excluded every page whose top keyword triggers AI Overviews, Featured Snippets, or Discussions carousels. Pure blue-link organic. No special treatment.

    Removing Reddit's SERP advantages makes the zero-backlink problem worse
    Comparison: all Reddit pages vs. pages whose keywords don't trigger AI Overviews, Featured Snippets, or DiscussionsAll SERP features includedPure blue links only (no special treatment)Pages with 5K+ traffic8,7433,132Monthly organic visits121M55MPages with zero referring domains53%64%← gets worse

    55 million monthly visits remain. And the zero-backlink percentage increases from 53% to 64%.

    This is the finding that matters most. Reddit doesn't just rank because of SERP features. Even in pure blue-link organic results, with no special treatment at all, nearly two-thirds of Reddit's top pages rank with zero external validation.

    What Google Routes Users To

    Categories tell you where Reddit's organic presence concentrates and what kind of content Google considers rank-worthy.

    Google routes millions of monthly visits to anonymous Reddit posts on sensitive topics
    Estimated monthly organic visits by content category, Reddit pages with 5K+ traffic (US)Adult / NSFW3.34MCareer / Jobs1.58MPiracy / Streaming878KCredit Cards977KRecipes / Food800KReal Estate755KInsurance702KSoftware / SaaS442KDating425KYMYL (Your Money or Your Life)Adult / grey areaGeneral

    The combined YMYL categories (credit cards, insurance, real estate) account for 2.4M monthly visits to anonymous posts on topics Google's own guidelines say require the highest trust standards.

    The streaming/piracy category delivers 878K monthly visits to guides about free movie sites, YouTube-to-MP3 converters, and TikTok downloaders. Google's own organic results route users there.

    What This Means

    Not all Reddit content is bad. Some of these threads contain real, useful advice from people with actual experience. The r/personalfinance community has helped millions of people.

    The issue is the mechanism. Google isn't ranking these posts because it evaluated the content and found it trustworthy. It's ranking them because they sit on a DR 92 domain. The proof: 53% have zero backlinks. No external signal of quality exists.

    What Google tells publishers to do and what Google actually rewards are two different things. The data makes that hard to argue with.

    The Bottom Line

    Google spent years telling publishers to demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Then it gave a single domain a ranking advantage so powerful that anonymous posts with zero backlinks outperform pages that followed every rule Google published.

    Raw data from the export, sorted by estimated monthly US organic traffic. February 26, 2026.

    #SubredditTop KeywordVolumePosTrafficRef. Domains
    1r/ChatGPTchat gpt27,870,000#33,284,3580
    2r/NYKnicksknicks2,720,000#11,728,7330
    3r/camtocamsitesfapello1,340,000#11,268,5372
    4r/NoStupidQuestionsbarnes and noble1,070,000#1885,5190
    5r/ChatGPTchat gpt27,870,000#6558,0500
    6r/Journalingjournaling techniques1,360,000#2529,1210
    7r/Gamesgames2,330,000#2452,1220
    8r/ChatGPTchat gpt27,870,000#13432,3370
    9r/DataHoarderyoutube to mp31,350,000#4398,1000
    10r/NewTubersvideo editing tips991,000#2362,0810
    11r/wordlewordle today2,580,000#7325,1490
    12r/graphic_designfree portfolio sites1,120,000#2314,9090
    13r/dadjokesdad jokes693,000#3310,7510
    14r/Entrepreneursmall business ideas472,000#2301,2830
    15r/careeradvicecareer advice575,000#2295,2260
    16r/arduinochat gpt27,870,000#14287,6910
    17r/JanitorAI_Officialjanitor ai1,540,000#2286,1050
    18r/nflreddit nfl86,000#1276,8710
    19r/SomebodyMakeThisinstagram story viewer3,040,000#4272,4620
    20r/askgaybroscoomer471,000#1266,7460
    21r/generationologywhat does 67 mean517,000#2264,6100
    22r/dating_advicedating advice464,000#1236,5990
    23r/learnjavascripthow to learn javascript492,000#2236,1140
    24r/allreddit9,100,000#1228,8951773
    25r/NYYankeesny yankees723,000#1227,6760
    26r/NoStupidQuestionschat gbt2,520,000#4221,3780
    27r/SoftwareEngineeringknowledge base software732,000#2219,3850
    28r/eagleseagles4,480,000#1212,9850
    29r/cloudstoragecloud storage44,000#7206,1020
    30r/XRPxrp2,380,000#1204,0000
    31r/lakerslakers games657,000#1201,4270
    32r/steelerssteelers3,440,000#1200,1170
    33r/Meditationmeditation techniques442,000#2199,8350
    34r/nbareddit nba92,000#1191,4630
    35r/popularreddit9,100,000#1189,86396
    36r/ChatGPTchat got1,590,000#3187,5010
    37r/AMAreddit9,100,000#1183,0074125
    38r/Teacherswhat does 6 7 mean slang93,000#2182,6910
    39r/AmItheAssholereddit aita93,000#1171,0600
    40r/passive_incomepassive income ideas494,000#2166,5970
    41r/BackgroundCheckGuidephone number lookup free49,000#1164,2340
    42r/GreenBayPackerspackers2,500,000#1160,4770
    43r/wallstreetbetswallstreetbets62,000#1155,8210
    44r/NoStupidQuestionssophie rain nude416,000#2150,2980
    45r/Journalismcharlie kirk video210,000#4144,4930
    46r/onlinecoursesonline course platforms978,000#3140,8090
    47r/YouShouldKnowfree streaming sites17,000#1139,1710
    48r/interviewscommon interview questions86,000#2138,7240
    49r/freelancefreelancing tips1,040,000#3136,9120
    50r/Rainbow6r6 marketplace1,040,000#3134,4310

    Of the top 50 pages, 45 have zero referring domains. The exceptions are general Reddit landing pages (r/all, r/popular, r/AMA).

    Yuval Halevi

    Yuval Halevi

    Helping SaaS companies and developer tools get cited in AI answers since before it was called "GEO." 10+ years in B2B SEO, 50+ cybersecurity and SaaS tools clients.