Reddit as the leading source of citations for AI chatbots attracts spammers posting fake reviews
According to data from Semrush, Reddit was the most cited domain in May 2026 by the tools ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google Gemini/AI Mode. This attracts spammers — the account Primary-Taro4254 promoted Honeydew Labs and was exposed by users and moderators of r/SkincareAddiction.
According to data from Semrush, an SEO company owned by Adobe, provided to The Verge, Reddit was the most frequently cited domain in May 2026 by the AI tools ChatGPT and Perplexity and the Gemini and AI Mode services from Google — more frequently than news publishers, scientific repositories, or Wikipedia. Semrush also found that, compared with last year, Google inserts AI Overviews much more frequently into search queries with commercial intent, meaning when users compare products or brands.
The growing importance of Reddit for citations by AI chatbots is attracting marketers and spammers who try to influence language model responses and get mentions of their brands included. According to the article from The Verge, an account named Primary-Taro4254 appeared on the platform, repeatedly praising a hypochlorous acid spray from Honeydew Labs across multiple threads and different skincare subreddits, including specific technical details about the product. Users of the subreddit r/SkincareAddiction, which has over a million weekly visitors, noticed the pattern and flagged the suspicious account activity; moderators subsequently banned the account and set up automatic filtering of posts mentioning Honeydew Labs for manual review. Neither Honeydew Labs nor the person behind the account Primary-Taro4254 responded to a request for comment from The Verge.
According to moderator Maya Adivi, spammer tactics have become more subtle — instead of overtly promotional reviews, seemingly authentic questions appear, subsequently triggering a wave of comments mentioning specific brands, or comments that mimic the format of prompts for AI chatbots. The subreddit r/SkincareAddiction prohibits accounts associated with brands from contributing to discussions, and according to The Verge, moderators either warn such accounts or ban them outright. Details can be found in the source article.
Why it matters
For companies, this means that attempts to covertly influence AI citations through Reddit carry the risk of being exposed by both the community and moderators, followed by bans and damage to brand reputation, as the case of Honeydew Labs shows. For ordinary users, this means that reviews on Reddit, which AI chatbots now draw on more than other sources, may be deliberately manipulated, reducing their reliability as a source of information for decision-making.
Two audiences, two different impacts
What this means
For individuals
Reviews and recommendations on Reddit, which AI chatbots frequently cite, may be deliberately manipulated by marketing or spam accounts, so it is advisable to treat them with greater caution.
For a business
Companies that covertly promote themselves on Reddit in an effort to get cited by AI chatbots risk being exposed by the community and moderators, having their accounts banned (as in the case of Honeydew Labs), and damaging their brand reputation.
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Event sources
only one source so far · 1 publisher, 1 independent. We count feeds from the same owner only once.