Trust and authority? You can (also) build them on Reddit and Quora
Try it out: open Google and search for a decision-making query, such as “best CRM for SMEs.” Scrolling through the results, you’ll notice that, among the usual review sites, there’s almost always a link to Reddit. This is a deliberate algorithmic decision, and SEOZoom data confirms it: Reddit.com boasts almost 9 million keywords on Google in the Italian market and, above all, almost 23,000 keywords that are cited in response by AI Overview. And then there’s Quora, a massive source of reference for global AI models.
In short, Google and algorithms have identified these “trust hubs” as the source of experience that corporate marketing struggles to demonstrate. This trend is now the dominant strategy, consolidated by the million-dollar agreements that Google and OpenAI have signed to use Reddit data as training material.
AI Overview draws heavily from these conversations, as we have seen, shifting your strategic focus, because now your competition is played out in quotes, and you need to be present in the conversations that users already consider reliable.
Trust is the new currency
For years, you have worked to get Google to consider your site the best answer. Now, you have to compete with what Google (and AI) considers the most authentic source. Perceived credibility is the new core currency of the search ecosystem. The introduction of E for Experience in the E-E-A-T framework formalized a trend that users had already adopted: the flight from corporate showcases in search of social proof.
Your landing page, however optimized, remains a biased statement; a Reddit thread is, or at least is perceived to be, lived proof. User-generated content (UGC) has become the raw material that AI seeks.
This preference is reinforced by external data: a recent Gartner survey measured the skepticism and perceived accuracy of information on social platforms, revealing that users express a clear preference for peer-reviewed content. Trust in YouTube (66% between “great” and “some trust”) and Reddit (46%) clearly outstrips other social platforms. Added to this is an “extra” factor, namely the presence of significant commercial agreements in place—back in May 2024, OpenAI signed a partnership to access Reddit’s APIs, obtaining their “unique, structured, real-time content” to train ChatGPT, and Google followed suit with a $60 million annual agreement to use Reddit’s huge archive of human conversations.
And last but not least, there is a technical reason: for a generative engine, whose usefulness depends on user trust and satisfaction, drawing on corporate sources is a risk; using data extrapolated from human conversations is a guarantee.
AI pursues user authenticity
So AI, in its quest to simulate the Experience, is simply replicating a choice that people have already made, consciously or unconsciously.
This is also confirmed by
Translated, the algorithm simply prioritizes sources that humans have already validated.
The impact of this algorithmic preference is already visible in Italy: our analysis of the reddit.com domain immediately reveals a colossal organic presence, with almost 9 million keywords ranked on Google, and, above all, a strategic role in the new AI landscape. Currently, we track over 22,000 unique keywords for which Reddit gains visibility within Google’s AI Overview, generating an estimated traffic of nearly 180,000 visits. Analysis of the nature of these queries reveals the algorithm’s strategy: AI does not draw from Reddit for generic queries, which it can satisfy with Wikipedia, but for hyper-specific ones, using these UGCs to answer long-tail and conversational questions (such as distance between pylons). AI does not draw from Reddit for generic queries, which it can satisfy with Wikipedia, but for the hyper-specific, using this UGC to answer long-tail and conversational questions (such as distance between Enel pylons or Sky remote control downloads immediately) that only the human experience of a trusted hub can satisfy, to chart a path through that conversational messy middle that corporate sites will never cover.
Reddit vs. Quora: two SEO strategies for two different “hubs”
Now that you understand the algorithmic preference for these platforms, you mustn’t make the mistake of treating them as if they were interchangeable. You need to study them with the same precision with which you analyze a competitor.
Reddit and Quora are undoubtedly central to AI and respond to its need for authenticity, but they do so with completely different cultures, rules, and SEO objectives—and therefore require specific investments.
Reddit already has proven organic visibility on the Italian market—search for queries such as “first bank account,” “best noise-canceling headphones under €100,” or “how to invest €10k,” and you will always find at least one Reddit result, which even ranks first for keywords such as “meme Italy,” “how to get rich,” or “university professor salary.” It works like a real-time social validation test, governed by collective mistrust.
It is not (yet?) in the top 10 domains with the most keywords used by AI Overview—dominated by giants such as YouTube with almost 600,000 keywords and Wikipedia with almost 400,000—but this apparent paradox can be explained by looking at the type of citations: Reddit is the hub of the hyper-specific, winning on the breadth of long-tail niches, not on traffic volume.
Quora, on the other hand, has residual organic visibility in Italy, but its Q&A structure feeds AI models on long-tail and comparative queries—and in fact, it is reported as one of the most cited sources by Gemini and ChatGPT worldwide precisely because of its nature as an evergreen library.
Its strategic value is purely GEO – in our vision of GEO, or SEO for AI: you must first win the organic SERP (on Google, Reddit, and Quora) because that is where AI draws its sources for the RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) process in order to cite you in a truly useful way.
Reddit and the challenge of mistrust
On Reddit, authenticity is the only way in. The platform is designed to expel marketing: communities are run by volunteer moderators, not brands, and blatant promotion is instantly punished with downvotes.
Actor Woody Harrelson knows something about this, whose 2012 AMA (Ask Me Anything) became famous and historic for the wrong reason. His team organized the event with the sole intention of promoting the movie “Rampart”; users began asking personal questions, as expected in an AMA, including a very detailed and embarrassing one about an alleged encounter at a school dance. Harrelson’s team blatantly ignored these questions, trying to divert the conversation with phrases such as “Let’s focus on the movie.” The community reacted by turning the thread into a reputational disaster, where every comment became a parody focused on “Rampart.”
Spotify, on the other hand, understood the rules and put together a winning strategy. When they want to interact with the community, they don’t send marketers, they send engineers. For the launch of the “Lossless” feature, for example, an Engineering Manager answered complex technical questions such as “Will you use bit-perfect?” and “How do you handle the operating system’s audio resampling?” The engineer responded transparently, explaining the technical and business trade-offs, earning thousands of upvotes and even awards from the community.
This is E-E-A-T in action.
Strategic notes for SEO and GEO on Reddit
And you can apply the same logic to creating text content for which you intend to rank organically. Your SEO strategy on Reddit should follow a “Crawl, Walk, Run” approach: for months (“Crawl”), build “Karma” (reputation) by responding helpfully without ever linking; only after you’ve earned trust (‘Walk’) can you move on to the “Run” phase and create proactive content.
To rank for “best CRM for SMEs,” you can’t just publish a promotional article—Reddit is not a place to sell, the community is allergic to promotion, it immediately smells inauthentic marketing and actively punishes brands that try to sell with downvotes or bans. You need an authentic post, such as “I tested 5 CRMs for my SME: here is my pros/cons analysis,” which offers immense value to the community, ranks on Google for its E-E-A-T, and becomes the source that AI will read and cite.
This is the only currency accepted: experience. Analysis tells us that users are looking for “authentic peer advice,” “reviews and opinions from real people,” and the opinion of someone who really knows the subject, not a company brochure. And Google is actively rewarding this experience, so much so that Reddit threads appear in 70-98% of “product review” searches and their organic visibility has grown exponentially precisely to meet this need.
That’s not all: as mentioned, AI in RAG trusts content built in this way more, because it is trained to prefer information in natural language, written by ordinary people, not companies. Authenticity, real opinions, experiences, and advice are exactly what AI looks for in content in order to select it as a trusted source.
Leveraging Quora to build evergreen assets
The other area of work is Quora, where you need an approach focused on demonstrating expertise to gain social proof.
Here, your currency is nominal expertise because, unlike Reddit’s community and anonymous validation, Quora is based on individual authority. Your goal is for your text (signed with your first and last name, with your professional bio) to become the definitive answer to a question, earning upvotes from the community and, consequently, a high ranking on Google.
As our data shows, the Italian version of Quora ranks heavily for informational queries and definitions (such as “curriculum vitae cos’è” or “a chi di competenza”). Google rewards these pages because the Q&A structure, validated by upvotes, is a powerful form of E-E-A-T.
This strategy is based on three operational pillars.
The first is to optimize your profile. Your answer on Quora is only valuable if the user (and the algorithm) understands who is speaking. Your profile is your E-E-A-T “About Us” page. It must establish your authority unequivocally: professional photo, clear job title (“Marketing Director at CompanyX”) and a bio listing your skills and credentials.
The second pillar is writing the definitive answer. You must treat each answer as a mini-article. Analysis confirms that Quora’s algorithm (and the AI that reads it) rewards long-form answers, often over 1,000 words. Your text must be well structured, solve the problem comprehensively, and ideally include comparative tables (which are “gold” for AI because they are easy to extract) or data that demonstrates your expertise.
The third pillar is the strategic result: winning the SERP to become the RAG source. This evergreen, optimized, and authoritative answer will rank on the organic long tail (as for “curriculum vitae what is it”). It will become the asset that AI (RAG) will read and cite.
A winning example is demonstrated by CodingNinjas, an Indian ed-tech platform specializing in advanced programming courses (Java, Data Science), with a B2C target audience of students and professionals seeking to bridge the skills gap to enter large tech companies. The team noticed that the first qualified leads came from Quora, not from traditional channels. They then invested in strategically answering targeted questions that intercepted users at the end of the decision-making funnel—queries related to their services, competitors, and questions focused on the solution and product. Instead of promoting, they provided technical and comprehensive answers. The result: in one year, Quora became their number one source of qualified leads because their technical and in-depth answers demonstrate their expertise, acting as social proof and becoming a useful asset for winning the global SERP and becoming the answer that AI chooses to cite.
How to use SEO data to intercept crucial questions
Forget the reactive, community manager approach, and especially the old link building tactics, such as spamming decontextualized links in forums hoping to collect link juice. Those strategies are dead because algorithms (and users) look for signs of trust and experience, as you’ve seen.
Building your authority requires a surgical plan, and your operations on Reddit and Quora become a strategic action guided by SEO data. True “GEO” (Generative Engine Optimization) consists of using data to win the organic SERP, because that’s where AI draws its sources for the RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) process.
The operational plan therefore pursues a twofold objective: you must intercept the threads that Google already considers authoritative (the “Golden Threads”), achieving immediate impact, and at the same time you must anticipate the questions that users (and AI) will ask tomorrow, mapping the messy middle. And SEOZoom tools give you the support and data you need.
- The diagnosis: mapping golden threads with Social Opportunities
Your strategic diagnosis begins with identifying golden threads, the Reddit and Quora URLs that Google is already ranking in the top 10 for your keywords and where you need to take action with the highest priority because Google has already validated these threads as authoritative sources—and someone else is taking traffic away from you, whether it’s a direct competitor or a competitor for attention that you hadn’t considered.
The tool for this mapping is Social Opportunities (found in both Projects and the Social Media section). The procedure is precise: you must describe your business or the sectors to be analyzed in the appropriate bar (“crm software for SMEs” or “personal finance and investments”) and use the filters in the left column to isolate only the reddit.com and quora.com domains. The resulting table is your strategic map, a list of precise keywords and URLs of threads where your intervention is needed.
- Listening: finding conversational queries with Question Explorer
To intercept conversations before they become golden threads, you need to map the natural language your user uses to express a doubt, anxiety, or comparison—as well as the context that the algorithm rewards. You need to understand the messy middle. To do this, start by using Question Explorer to intercept the real questions (“why…”, “what are the alternatives to…”) that users already type (and Google shows in People Also Ask). This list is your first editorial track, telling you what content you need to create to respond authoritatively, understanding the exact pain points that AI will try to solve by drawing on RAG sources. If the topic is very niche and Question Explorer returns little data, or to enrich the analysis, switch to AI Engine and analyze the URLs of competitors who already rank for your main keyword (even if they are not threads). AI Engine simulates AI reading and returns thematic clusters and, crucially, the buyer personas that content is responding to. Use this combined data and you will know what the user is asking and who you need to talk to when writing your response on Reddit or Quora.
- SEO and AI monitoring
The effectiveness of your strategy is measured in terms of organic ranking (SEO) and citation (GEO). After working to position your posts or new threads in the SERP, you need to monitor both results.
For organic ranking, use the platform’s tracking tools: enter the URL of the thread or your new post in the Monitored Pages and the target keywords in the Monitored Keywords of your project. This allows you to track your daily SEO visibility.
At the same time, monitor GEO: use the AI Overview tool (accessible from Keyword Research or Domain Analysis) to check if the keyword triggers Google’s AI response and if, by positioning yourself in SERP, the AI is choosing you in its RAG process. The AI Rank metric tells you how you are positioned within the response. Or, use AI Overview Gap to find out where your competitors are mentioned and you are not.
Beyond referral traffic: the impact on Zoom Authority and E-E-A-T
This approach to Reddit and Quora goes beyond classic SEO analysis, which would have superficially evaluated these platforms by stopping at the first technical hurdle—links are almost always nofollow and, therefore, in the old link building perspective, their value in transferring link juice is nil.
Today, however, the strategy is developed on a completely different level, focused on building authority and E-E-A-T signals: it is a comprehensive ranking effort, in which you use authenticity and experience to win the organic SERP on those specific queries and, precisely thanks to this organic positioning, you trigger the virtuous cycle that leads you to become the source that AI reads and cites; and by appearing as the trusted answer for the user, you increase the chances of generating brand mentions and brand signals. The algorithm “sees” your entity semantically associated with that topic. The entire process (organic ranking + AI citation) directly feeds and strengthens the overall authority of your domain, which you can read with Zoom Authority.
Authority building, answers to key FAQs
Using UGC platforms such as Reddit and Quora to strengthen trust and authority requires the application of a different SEO strategy than traditional optimization. You need to work to be present at the moment of the user’s decision thanks to organic visibility and, at the same time, AI mentions in the RAG process.
We have outlined the data-driven action plan, and now we also present the latest common operational questions to help you work more efficiently.
- What is the strategic difference between Reddit and Quora?
The nature of the platform and the operational strategy you need to adopt require a dual assessment, which also takes into account your goal and the market.
Reddit is a hub of community validation (trust): its strength lies in collective experience and, as our data shows, it wins the Italian organic SERP on experience and niche queries (e.g., “best CRM for SMEs”). Your strategy on Reddit is therefore “Crawl, Walk, Run”: you need to earn trust (Karma) for months before you can publish valuable content.
Quora, on the other hand, is a hub of individual expertise (authority); our data shows that it wins the Italian organic SERP on informational and definition queries (e.g., “curriculum vitae cos’è”). Your strategy on Quora is to write the definitive answer: a long-form “mini-article,” optimizing your expert profile, with the goal of positioning yourself organically and becoming the source that AI can cite.
- Why are Reddit and Quora strategic for SEO?
Their strategic relevance stems from algorithmic trust. Google and AI engines (such as Gemini or Perplexity) have identified the authentic conversations on these platforms as primary sources of E-E-A-T (Experience). This choice is supported both by market data, such as the million-dollar deals signed with Reddit, and by data emerging from our platform: SEOZoom’s analysis shows that Reddit, on the Italian market, already achieves visibility in AI Overview for 22,831 keywords.
- What is the advantage of using Reddit if the links are nofollow?
The strategic advantage lies in authority building, which goes beyond classic link juice. Activity on these hubs, even with nofollow links, generates a “virtuous cycle of authority”: brand exposure in a trusted context leads users to perform branded searches on Google. This sends E-E-A-T and relevance signals to the algorithm, strengthening your thematic authority and your Zoom Authority (ZA).
- How do I find the right conversations to monitor?
The strategic approach is data-driven to avoid flying blind. The most effective method is to use the Social Opportunities tool: by describing your industry and filtering by the domains reddit.com or quora.com, you get a list of URLs (“Golden Threads”) that Google already ranks in the top 10. To anticipate new questions, you can use Question Explorer.
