{
 "question": "When and under what conditions does a Reddit thread become cited evidence in Google\u2019s AI answers, how does that differ from Google\u2019s own ranking, what does the thread contribute to the answer, and how stable is it?",
 "population": "Reddit thread links in Google AI Overviews (486 of 800 US keywords) and AI Mode (400) on 26 September 2026; ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude answers to 80 buyer questions on 26 September 2026; 96 keywords in three wordings (288 searches) and 576 searches with the organic top 100 on 28 September 2026. Thread text, votes and comments for 1,855 threads from the Arctic Shift archive.",
 "inclusion": "Links to individual Reddit threads (/comments/ in the address); every Reddit thread in the organic results or Discussions and forums box of the same results page; same-community controls from Arctic Shift title search.",
 "exclusion": "The 160 question-stratum keywords of study 4 (as in version 1.0).",
 "calculations": [
  "Shown = thread in the organic results or Discussions and forums box of the same page; for AI Mode the regular results page for the same keyword.",
  "Attached sentence = the answer line carrying the thread link.",
  "Same-search comparison: conditional logistic regression, one stratum per search, standardized continuous features, Holm correction.",
  "Same-community comparison: each cited thread with up to 3 same-subreddit threads whose titles share the search words and that no answer cites; conditional logit per matched set.",
  "Community type, information need, claim role and support: two independent model coders (Claude Opus, Claude Sonnet); first coder's label used; percent agreement and Cohen's kappa reported.",
  "Full-thread check: for sentences that begin with a named option, whether the name's first word occurs anywhere in the post or complete comment tree.",
  "Intervals: seed-topic bootstrap (2,000 resamples, seed 20260928) for Google rates; Wilson 95% intervals otherwise."
 ],
 "limitations": [
  "Observational; no thread was changed, so no causal claims.",
  "Comments and votes as archived on 28 September 2026, not on the search date.",
  "Support judged by models on the post and top 10 comments; no human coding.",
  "Stability rests on 96 keywords over two days and 12 to 16 Reddit-citing answers per comparison.",
  "The top-100 searches are assistant-reformulated questions, not the 800 keywords.",
  "Assistant rates rest on 80 answers per engine."
 ],
 "update": "quarterly; week-over-week figures to be added with the volatility study",
 "@context": "https://schema.org",
 "@type": "Dataset",
 "name": "When does a Reddit thread become evidence in Google\u2019s AI?",
 "version": "1.1",
 "dateCreated": "2026-09-26",
 "creator": {
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Underneath",
  "url": "https://underneath.agency"
 },
 "url": "https://underneath.agency/research/ai-reddit-citations-study",
 "temporalCoverage": "2026-09-26/2026-09-28",
 "isAccessibleForFree": true,
 "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
 "code": "cite/pipeline/ (collection, validation and analysis scripts)",
 "variableMeasured": [
  "reanalyzed",
  "collected",
  "coding_community",
  "coding_need",
  "coding_claim_role",
  "coding_claim_support",
  "archive",
  "prevalence",
  "by_industry_ao",
  "by_intent_ao",
  "by_need_ao",
  "by_need_aim",
  "need_model_ao",
  "stages_s26",
  "depth_t100",
  "same_search_model",
  "matched_model",
  "matched_medians",
  "same_search_medians",
  "raw_compare",
  "cited_thread_profile",
  "community_types",
  "composition_by_industry",
  "communities",
  "placement",
  "claims",
  "named_option_check",
  "stability",
  "v10",
  "google_overlap"
 ],
 "dateModified": "2026-09-28",
 "research_questions": {
  "RQ1": "Prevalence: how often do AI answers cite Reddit, by engine, industry, keyword intent and model-coded information need?",
  "RQ2": "Retrieval divergence: are cited threads the ones Google shows, and at which ranking depth (top 10 on 486 searches, top 100 on 505)?",
  "RQ3": "Thread characteristics: what distinguishes cited threads from threads Google showed for the same search, and from same-community threads?",
  "RQ4": "Contribution: what role does the thread play in the attached sentence, and does the thread support it?",
  "RQ5": "Stability: same 96 keywords two days apart and in three wordings.",
  "RQ6": "Causation: not answered; no thread was changed."
 },
 "framework": "Stages: shown by Google -> cited by the AI -> attached to a sentence -> sentence supported by the thread. Influence on the answer and user outcomes are named but not measured."
}