Reddit Search

Reddit Search

Search Reddit content using alternative APIs due to Reddit's rate limiting and blocking of direct JSON API access.

Problem: Reddit API Rate Limiting (2024-2025)

Reddit has significantly restricted access to their public JSON API:

• Direct requests to reddit.com/search.json often return HTML blocks
• Both www.reddit.com and old.reddit.com APIs are affected
• Rate limits are strictly enforced (10 req/min unauthenticated, 60 req/min with OAuth)
• User-Agent headers alone are no longer sufficient

Recommended Solutions

1. Pullpush.io (Primary - Recommended)

Pullpush.io provides a reliable Reddit archive API that indexes Reddit content.

Search Posts:

curl -s "https://api.pullpush.io/reddit/search/submission/?q={keyword}&size=50&sort=desc&sort_type=created_utc" | \
  jq '.data[] | {
    title: .title,
    subreddit: .subreddit,
    url: ("https://reddit.com/r/" + .subreddit + "/comments/" + .id),
    score: .score,
    comments: .num_comments,
    author: .author,
    date: (.created_utc | todate)
  }'

Search Comments:

curl -s "https://api.pullpush.io/reddit/search/comment/?q={keyword}&size=50&sort=desc&sort_type=created_utc" | \
  jq '.data[] | {
    body: .body[:200],
    subreddit: .subreddit,
    author: .author,
    score: .score,
    date: (.created_utc | todate),
    url: ("https://reddit.com/r/" + .subreddit + "/comments/" + .link_id[3:] + "/_/" + .id)
  }'

Filter by Subreddit:

curl -s "https://api.pullpush.io/reddit/search/submission/?q={keyword}&subreddit=MachineLearning,artificial,LocalLLaMA&size=50"

Pullpush.io Parameters:

2. Exa API (Alternative for Semantic Search)

Exa provides AI-powered search that can find Reddit discussions. Useful when you need semantic/neural search.

curl -s -X POST "https://api.exa.ai/search" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_EXA_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "query": "{keyword} site:reddit.com",
    "type": "auto",
    "numResults": 20,
    "contents": {
      "text": true
    }
  }' | jq '.results[] | {title: .title, url: .url, text: .text[:300]}'

Note: Exa searches indexed content and may not have the latest posts.

3. Official Reddit API (With OAuth - Fallback)

If you need real-time data and have OAuth credentials:

# First get access token
ACCESS_TOKEN=$(curl -s -X POST "https://www.reddit.com/api/v1/access_token" \
  -u "CLIENT_ID:CLIENT_SECRET" \
  -d "grant_type=client_credentials" \
  -A "aggregated-search/1.0" | jq -r '.access_token')

# Then search with token
curl -s "https://oauth.reddit.com/search.json?q={keyword}&sort=relevance&t=week&limit=50" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "User-Agent: aggregated-search/1.0" | \
  jq '.data.children[].data | {
    title: .title,
    subreddit: .subreddit,
    url: ("https://reddit.com" + .permalink),
    score: .score
  }'

Recommended Subreddits

Output Format

## Reddit

| # | Title | Subreddit | Score | Comments | Date |
|---|-------|-----------|-------|----------|------|
| 1 | [Title](url) | r/MachineLearning | 500 | 100 | 2026-02-01 |

### Active Subreddits
- r/MachineLearning (15 posts)
- r/artificial (10 posts)

Rate Limits & Best Practices

Pullpush.io

• No authentication required
• Generous rate limits for reasonable use
• Slight delay in indexing (not real-time)

Exa API

• Requires API key
• Semantic search capabilities
• Good for finding relevant discussions

Official Reddit API

• OAuth required for reliable access
• 60 requests/minute with authentication
• Real-time data access

Comparison

Troubleshooting

If Pullpush.io returns empty results:

• Check if the query is URL-encoded
• Try broader search terms
• The content may not be indexed yet (wait a few hours)

If Reddit blocks your request:

• Use Pullpush.io instead
• Get OAuth credentials for official API
• Check if your IP is temporarily blocked