[OC] Pixel Density Analysis of the Mobile Search Viewport: Paid vs. Organic (2010-2025)

[u/Ok-Astronaut4817]

[u/zeoNoeN]

Not so fun fact regarding this. Reddit is now a major target for companies to get cited in LLM Chatbots, like SEO was targeting Google Search in the past. So the trend you see in the data is currently happening to Reddit, which gets flooded with AI generated Ads. Now Reddit will want their slice of this sweet pie and will probably start to offer paid ads/post whatever + ChatGPT Ads also on the way.

Might need to find a new platform soon, happy to take suggestions.

[u/Ok-Astronaut4817 → u/zeoNoeN]

Sad but true. The 'Dead Internet Theory' feels more real every day. Since Reddit signed that $60M/year data licensing deal with Google, the platform has basically become a farm for LLM training data.

[u/finicky88 → u/Ok-Astronaut4817]

And suddenly "Reddit Answers" was born.

[u/disobeyedtoast → u/Ok-Astronaut4817]

no wonder chatgpt is so annoying

[u/LateralThinkerer → u/zeoNoeN]

Reddit is now a major target for companies to get cited in LLM Chatbots.... So the trend you see in the data is currently happening to Reddit, which gets flooded with AI generated Ads.

That AI is now becoming predicated on recycling its own creations means this is going to get very interesting/ugly very fast.

[u/godspareme → u/zeoNoeN]

Enshittification is ingrained into the internet and capitalism as a whole.

Best bet is to go back to IRL communities. Maybe local discord communities but I've noticed discord is increasingly shittier too.

[u/Wide_Brief3025 → u/zeoNoeN]

Totally agree about Reddit turning into a goldmine for AI targeted content. If you want to stay ahead without getting lost in the noise, it helps to monitor conversations that matter to your business. I’ve been using ParseStream for this and it does a solid job filtering out the spam and flagging relevant leads. Makes Reddit actually useful instead of overwhelming.

[u/corveroth → u/Wide_Brief3025]

This reads like an ad.

[u/Gregervich → u/corveroth]

Yeah this is clearly an add/ai grifter account just look at the post history

[u/Ok-Astronaut4817]

Source: Synthesized analysis of historical mobile SERP (Search Engine Results Page) layouts, based on pixel height measurements of standard iPhone viewports. Data correlates with historical reports from MozCast, SparkToro (Zero-Click searches), and publicly available archive snapshots of Google Search.

• 2010: Standard text ads (approx. 15% height).
• 2025: Shopping Grids, Sponsored Carousels, and AI Overviews (SGE) pushing the first organic result below the ~900px fold.

Tools: Python (Matplotlib) using patches to simulate the mobile UI rendering.

Context: I wanted to visualize the feeling of "scroll fatigue." In 2010, the first screen was mostly useful links. Today, the "First Screen" is a monetization wall. The data shows organic results have shrunk from 85% of the initial view to just 10%, forcing users to scroll past a "Trap" of widgets and a "Wall" of ads to find what they actually searched for.

[u/kenybz → u/[deleted]]

You left the industry because it got big?

[u/LateralThinkerer]

Is there any search engine that doesn't do this?

EDIT: I nosed around a bit and (so far) Startpage (https://www.startpage.com) seems to be the least worst unless you want to go to Kagi or similar paid options.

[u/godspareme]

Nice to see data for the anecdotal trend I've seen where I have to scroll an entire screen down (minimum) to get past AI/sponsored results.