TL;DR — Reddit and forum posts are disproportionately influential in AI responses because multiple models explicitly incorporate community content into their training and retrieval systems. Go to Insights > Social Signals to see which community domains rank highest for your brand, then filter Visibility > Citation Sources by
reddit.com to quantify Reddit’s exact citation share. Check the sentiment per domain to assess whether the community narrative is helping or hurting you. Pro tip: rather than trying to suppress negative threads, create authoritative owned content that addresses the same question better — AI models will gradually shift citation preference to more structured, recent sources.The Question
“Are Reddit threads or forum posts influencing what AI says about my brand?”Community platforms — Reddit in particular — have become unusually influential in AI-generated responses. Multiple AI models, including ChatGPT and Perplexity, have explicitly incorporated Reddit content into their training data and retrieval systems. A thread from two years ago where ten users discussed a frustrating experience with your product can quietly shape how AI answers hundreds of questions about you every month. The challenge is that you have no editorial control over these sources. You cannot update them the way you can update your blog. Understanding what community content exists, what it says, and how much AI models rely on it is the first step toward managing its impact. You might also be wondering:
- “Which websites influence what AI says about my brand overall?”
- “Are AI models citing outdated or inaccurate information about my brand?”
- “What is the overall sentiment of AI responses mentioning my brand?”
Where to Go in Qwairy
Start here: Insights > Social Signals
Navigate to Insights > Social Signals — this view is purpose-built for community source analysis.
Focus on the Community source ranking table, which lists Reddit, Quora, and niche forum domains alongside their citation counts, sentiment scores, and top referenced threads.
Go deeper: Visibility > Citation Sources
Cross-reference with Visibility > Citation Sources and apply a Domain filter: reddit.com to isolate Reddit citations specifically.
Review the specific Reddit thread URLs being cited to read the actual posts AI models are drawing from.
Complete the picture: Visibility > Responses + Looker Studio
Open Visibility > Responses and read AI answers that cite Reddit sources verbatim — this tells you exactly how AI is using the thread content, not just that it is citing it.
Connect Looker Studio using the
social-insights data source for a live dashboard tracking community citation share over time, shareable with your PR or community team.What to Look For
Insights > Social Signals — Community Source Ranking
Social Signals separates community sources from editorial and owned sources, giving you a focused view of the community layer of your AI narrative.| Element | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Community domain citation count | How many AI responses referenced Reddit, Quora, or a specific forum — raw influence measure |
| Community citation share (%) | What percentage of all your brand citations come from community platforms; above 25% is worth close monitoring |
| Sentiment per community domain | Whether the Reddit or forum citations are predominantly positive, neutral, or negative |
| Top cited threads | The specific thread titles and URLs being cited most; you can open these directly to read what AI is actually pulling from |
| Citation trend | Whether community citation share is growing — if Reddit citations are increasing quarter-over-quarter, the trend will continue without intervention |
Visibility > Citation Sources — Domain Filter: reddit.com
The Citations view with a domain filter applied gives you a precise, quantitative view of Reddit’s footprint in your AI citations.| Element | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Reddit thread URLs | Each specific thread being cited — subreddit, post title, post date |
| Per-thread citation count | Which specific threads are cited most; a single high-traffic thread can dominate if it appears in many responses |
| Provider breakdown | Whether all AI models cite Reddit or only certain ones — Perplexity tends to cite Reddit more heavily than Claude |
| Prompt context | Which types of questions trigger Reddit citations; complaints about support often pull Reddit threads, while feature questions may not |
Pro Tip: When you find a Reddit thread that is heavily cited and contains inaccurate or outdated information, the highest-leverage action is not to try to remove the thread but to create new, authoritative content that addresses the same question better. AI models will gradually shift citation preference to more structured, comprehensive, and recently updated sources.
Visibility > Responses — Narrative Verification
Reading the actual AI responses that cite Reddit content is the clearest way to understand the harm or benefit of community citations.| Element | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| How the thread is framed | AI may cite a complaint thread as evidence of a known issue, or a positive thread as social proof — the context changes the impact |
| Whether the thread claim is amplified or qualified | Some AI models present Reddit opinions as facts; others frame them as user perspectives — the framing matters for perception |
| Response quality score | Low-quality responses that cite Reddit heavily may indicate the model lacks better sources for this topic |
Filters That Help
| Filter | How to use it for this question |
|---|---|
| Provider | Some models rely on Reddit significantly more than others; comparing ChatGPT vs. Perplexity vs. Claude on community citation share reveals model-specific risks |
| Period | Check whether a specific Reddit thread’s influence spiked after a particular event (product launch, public incident, viral post) |
| Topic / Tag | Filter to customer support or pricing topics if those are where you expect community content to be most influential |
How to Interpret the Results
Good result
Reddit and forum sources account for less than 15% of your total AI citations. The community content being cited is predominantly positive or neutral — product enthusiasts discussing use cases, power users sharing tips. No single thread dominates. The cited threads are recent (within 12 months) and reflect your current product accurately.Needs attention
Community sources account for more than 30% of all AI citations. The top cited Reddit thread is a complaint post or a comparison where your brand comes off negatively. The thread was posted two or three years ago and your product has improved significantly since — but AI models continue to cite it because no newer, authoritative content has displaced it. Multiple AI providers are citing the same negative thread independently.Example
Scenario: A fitness app discovers that when ChatGPT answers questions about the best workout tracking apps, it consistently cites a two-year-old Reddit thread in r/fitness where users complained about the app crashing during workouts and losing logged data. The engineering team fixed those stability issues over a year ago and the app now has a 4.7-star rating.
- Open Insights > Social Signals and find reddit.com listed as the highest community source by citation count for the brand, with a negative sentiment score of 32.
- Switch to Visibility > Citation Sources, apply Domain filter: reddit.com, and locate the specific thread URL. It appears in 41 AI responses in the last 60 days — more than any other single community source.
- Open Visibility > Responses and read several of those 41 answers. ChatGPT phrases it as: “Some users have reported reliability issues, including data loss during workouts” — drawing directly from the outdated thread’s language despite the app’s current stability.
- Publish a dedicated reliability and performance page on the app’s website with real-time uptime stats, a clear FAQ addressing the historical stability concerns and how they were resolved, structured data markup, and embedded testimonials from current users. Build five inbound links from fitness media and wellness publications already covering workout app comparisons.
- Monitor in Qwairy over the next 60 days: track whether the new page begins appearing in citations on reliability-related prompts and whether Reddit citation share for that topic decreases as AI models shift to the more authoritative, current source.
Go Further
Community citation tracker
Track Reddit and forum citations over time in Looker Studio using the social-insights data source
Social Signals feature guide
Read the Social Signals documentation to understand how Qwairy tracks community and forum influence on AI
Share with your PR or community team
Create a shared view of community-sourced citations for your PR or community management team
Related Questions
Which websites influence what AI says about my brand?
Broaden the view from Reddit specifically to all external domains shaping your AI narrative.
Are AI models citing outdated or inaccurate information about my brand?
Trace inaccurate AI claims back to their source — whether that source is a forum, a blog, or a cached version of your own page.