How persistent are posts and comments on Reddit once published?

Posts and comments on Reddit are extremely persistent by default, and users should treat them as effectively permanent unless they take deliberate action to remove them. A post or comment published on Reddit remains publicly accessible via direct URL, appears in subreddit feeds and searches, and is indexed by Google and other search engines that have active agreements with Reddit — most notably, Google signed a data licensing deal with Reddit in January 2024. Once a post or comment is indexed by external search engines, copies of its content may persist in search engine caches and third-party archives even if the content is subsequently deleted from Reddit itself. Reddit does not automatically delete old posts or comments on the basis of age; there is no built-in expiration for content. Users can manually delete individual posts and comments from their profile at any time, and doing so removes the content from active Reddit feeds and marks it as "[deleted]" in threads where other users have replied to it. However, deletion from Reddit does not guarantee removal from external archives like the Wayback Machine or Pushshift-based tools that historically captured Reddit content at high frequency. Reddit's own data retention practices mean that even "deleted" content may persist in Reddit's internal systems for a period of time. The persistence of posts extends even to accounts that are deleted: if a user deletes their Reddit account, their posts and comments remain visible on the platform with the username replaced by "[deleted]," unless the user manually deleted the individual posts before closing the account. This behavior surprises many users who expect account deletion to cascade into content deletion. The practical implication is that anything you post on Reddit should be treated as permanent public record, particularly for sensitive personal topics.