Are Reddit links nofollow? Yes, and here's what still works

How to verify it yourself

Do not take anyone's word for this, including ours. Open any Reddit thread with an outbound link, right-click the link, choose Inspect, and read the anchor tag. You will see rel="nofollow" on it, usually alongside ugc and noopener. That is Reddit telling Google, in the markup, not to count the link as an endorsement. It takes ten seconds and it settles the question permanently.

The rel="ugc" value sitting next to it stands for user-generated content, a separate attribute Google introduced in 2019 for exactly this kind of link. Both are hints that the link should not pass authority.

The exception people miss

Reddit links are nofollow. Links to Reddit are not. When a thread gets picked up and linked from a news article, a newsletter, or someone's blog, that thread accumulates real authority, which is part of why Reddit threads rank so well. You cannot borrow that authority through a link. You can, however, be the product named inside the thread that has it. That distinction is the whole game, and it is why the nofollow answer settles less than people assume.

One more thing worth knowing: nofollow has been a hint rather than a directive since Google's March 2020 change, meaning Google reserves the right to use these links for discovery and other purposes. Do not read that as a loophole. It does not make Reddit link-dropping a viable strategy, and treating it as one gets your account removed long before it gets you a ranking.

So does Reddit help SEO at all?

Yes, through four mechanisms, none of which is a backlink. This is the part that gets lost when the nofollow answer is treated as the end of the conversation rather than the start of it.

Where the real SEO value is

• →SERP presence: Reddit threads rank at the top of Google for buyer keywords, and being recommended inside one earns the click an ad never would. See why Reddit ranks so high on Google.
• →Branded search lift: people who see your product mentioned on Reddit go and Google your name, and branded search is a signal that compounds.
• →AI citations: the same threads feed AI answer engines, so the value spills into GEO.
• →Referral traffic: a genuinely helpful comment in an active, ranking thread sends qualified visitors for months. Nofollow or not.

The branded-search effect

This is the underrated mechanism. Someone reads a Reddit thread, sees your product named credibly, and searches your brand directly. That branded query, and the engagement that follows, is exactly the kind of demand signal that strengthens your own site's rankings over time. Reddit doesn't pass link juice; it manufactures the demand that does the work.

What not to do

• →Don't post links for SEO. They're nofollow and link-dropping from most accounts gets auto-removed.
• →Don't spam the same comment across subreddits chasing volume; it's a fast route to a shadowban.
• →Do sanity-check your give-to-take ratio before promoting. The free self-promotion checker does it in seconds.

Quick answers

• →Are Reddit comment links nofollow? Yes. Comments and submissions are treated the same way; there is no account level or karma threshold that changes it.
• →Do Reddit links help SEO at all? Not through link equity. They can still send referral traffic and get your brand searched, which does help.
• →Is posting links on Reddit worth it? Only where the link genuinely answers the question asked. Otherwise it gets removed, and repeat attempts get the account shadowbanned.
• →Does this apply to old.reddit.com and the app? Yes. The attribute is on the link markup itself, not on a particular interface.