How to Get Backlinks from Reddit (Without Getting Banned)

Reddit is one of the few places where a stranger with no audience can get in front of thousands of buyers in a day. It is not a place to collect SEO link equity, and most Reddit backlink advice mixes those two up.

This guide separates them: what a Reddit link actually does for you, how to earn one without losing the account, and how to check whether it worked. It ends with our own numbers from a Reddit post that reached 16,000 views.

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What a Reddit link is worth to Google

Reddit as a domain is strong. Third-party tools put its domain authority above 90, and Reddit threads rank on page one for a huge range of questions. But the authority belongs to Reddit, and the links you leave there are marked so Google doesn't pass it on.

Google treats nofollow and ugc as hints rather than strict rules, so it may still crawl the page you link to. What you should not count on is ranking credit. You will often read that a post converts to dofollow once it earns around five upvotes. We found no test that confirms this, so plan as if every Reddit link is nofollow.

Two other claims you'll see repeated are also wrong:

• "Google's Reddit partnership indexes threads within hours." The 2024 deal gives Google access to Reddit's data feed. Google said at the time that it does not change how it indexes publicly crawlable content. Threads get indexed the normal way.
• "Search Console shows which threads send you traffic." It doesn't. Search Console reports clicks from Google search. Visits from Reddit show up in your analytics tool (see "Measuring it" below).

Where Reddit does matter for search is visibility. Reddit threads show up in Google results, and AI assistants often cite them, which we cover in backlinks and AI search citations. A useful comment in a thread that ranks can be read by people for months.

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Our own example: 16,000 views, almost no visits

In November 2026 our founder posted a story in r/EntrepreneurRideAlong: my blog brought 30 Google visits last month, one free tool brought 1,500. It was a plain, numbers-first story about how Mentiohunt's search traffic grew. It had no link in it, and it named Mentiohunt once, in the last paragraph.

What happened:

• Views: about 16,000, with 11 upvotes and 19 comments when we wrote this.
• Visits: our analytics never recorded more than two visitors a day arriving from reddit.com, between late October and the week after the post.
• Links: none, since the post contained none.

The lesson is the one most Reddit guides skip: views on Reddit are not visits. People read the story and the comments, and that is where their attention stayed. If you want visitors, give them a reason to click. That means one link to the exact page that continues the story, placed where it answers a question the reader now has. A brand name at the end isn't enough.

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Two ways to earn the link

1. Answer a thread that already ranks

Find questions people in your niche are already asking, such as "what do you use for X?" or "how do you handle Y?", and write the best answer in the thread. Give your own point of view and a specific recommendation. A summary of what others said won't stand out.

Once the answer stands on its own, a link to a page that goes deeper reads as help: "I wrote up the full process here" works better than "check out my tool."

Worked example: a thread titled "how do you find backlink opportunities without an agency" that already ranks on Google is a better target than a new post. A reply that opens with a direct answer, gives two or three specific steps, and closes with "full write-up here if useful" earns upvotes because the comment is useful without the link.

2. Write your own post for a question people search

Pick a question that people search on Google and that Reddit answers badly. Write the answer as a proper post: clear structure, real numbers, a screenshot if it helps. Our own post above shows this can reach thousands of readers. It also shows that leaving the link out means almost none of them visit.

Use one link, at the point where the reader wants more. Don't put three links in, and don't open with one.

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Picking the subreddit and the thread

The fastest way to find threads that already rank: search Google for site:reddit.com "your keyword". Those are your targets.

Before you write anything, check the subreddit:

• Self-promotion rules. Many subreddits ban links to your own site, or allow them only on a weekly thread. The rules are in the sidebar or the "About" tab.
• Karma and account-age minimums. Often enforced automatically, so a new account's post can vanish without any message.
• Whether the thread still takes replies. Threads that rank on Google are often months old. Some are archived or locked; others still accept replies and still get read by people arriving from search. Check before you write.

Some guides recommend posting between 9 AM and 12 PM EST to get early upvotes. We haven't tested it. Post when the subreddit is active, and stay around to answer replies.

Not sure where else your buyers read? Reddit is one channel. For websites that already write about your topic, the free tool to find backlink opportunities gives you a starting list of sites to check before outreach.

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Account hygiene

Reddit's filters weigh account age and karma heavily. A new account with no history is often filtered before anyone sees the post.

• Spend a few weeks answering questions with no links. Short, direct, useful.
• Don't post the same content in several subreddits. Write each post for its audience.
• If a moderator removes a post, accept it. Arguing gets domains blacklisted, and then you lose that subreddit for good.

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Writing the link so it stays up

The anchor text and placement matter.

• One link per post or comment.
• Use your brand name, a plain URL or something like "our write-up". Exact-match keyword anchors look like spam to moderators and filters.
• Put the link after the value. The comment should earn the click first.
• Link the page that continues the thought, not your homepage.

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Measuring it

You can't see Reddit traffic in Search Console. Use your analytics tool:

1. In Google Analytics 4, open the Traffic acquisition report and filter the session source to reddit.com.
2. Reddit usually passes only https://www.reddit.com/ as the referrer, not the thread. So match spikes to the day you posted, and keep a simple log of what you posted where.
3. Check what those visitors did next: did they read a second page, try a tool, sign up? Our own post shows why: views on Reddit tell you nothing about visits.
4. For links, Search Console's Links report shows Reddit pages that link to you, once Google has indexed them.

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What to avoid

• Link-dumping. A URL with no context is an instant spam flag. Solve the problem first.
• Ignoring subreddit rules. A domain blacklist is permanent for that subreddit.
• Counting views as results. Measure visits and what visitors did, not upvotes.
• Expecting ranking credit. Plan for visitors and visibility, and earn your ranking links from websites.

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Where Mentiohunt fits

Mentiohunt doesn't post on Reddit for you, and it shouldn't: Reddit rewards a real person answering in their own words. What it does is the website side of link building. It finds sites that already write about your topic, emails them for you, and hands you the conversation at the first reply. See the backlink opportunity queue for how those prospects are picked.