A quick mod note on links in comments

Hello fellow Real Estate enthusiasts! Over the last few weeks I’ve been noticing more and more comments deleted for posting links. I wanted to take a second and clarify 1) Why this is happening 2) how to avoid it and 3) this subs rules on links. 1- Reddit has site wide anti spam rules that aren’t known, to my knowledge, but seem to target specific domains and/or identify comments that likely contain spam links. Moderators of subs have no control over this, including us. So for example, people frequently post bankrate.com links here. In particular the calculator’s etc. I don’t know what they did or who’s corn flakes they pissed in, but reddit wide doing this will result in your comment being removed. I just mention them as that is the most often one I see. Other domains I have never heard of seem to get the same treatment. Sometimes domains I see posted a lot get nailed for specific posts for reasons I am unaware of. I want to reiterate, these posts being removed are NOT by action of the moderators here or this subs policies, from the mods perspective here we just see a post that is well intentioned and may contain useful information and its automatically deleted. 2- I’m open to input on this one. I’d encourage anyone posting links to verify their post is visible by opening the thread in an incognito/private browsing/porn mode/whatever you want to call it tab. If it is not, simply send a mod mail and we can manually fix it. While the mods here do read most threads, I’m sure we miss some instances of this where someone posts a helpful comment and refers to an article or information that would help the discussion and it unfortunately never is view-able by anyone. This is what we want to avoid. If you took the time to write it, we want the community to see it. 3- All this said, I want to circle back and review the rules for posting links. While this largely isn’t a problem, I do not want this post to sound like posting outside links is a free for all and we will approve anything deleted. The rule is fairly simple, you may not post anything for self promotion purposes or SEO purposes. While that sounds simple, more specifically the mods are looking for a few things when we look at this. Your link should be on topic and contribute to the discussion. For instance, if a thread is about a landlord/tenant asking about evictions in their state, a link regarding the top 10 tips for staging a home is probably going to be viewed as spam. A link regarding tenant rights in that state would be fine provided the poster is not personally affiliated with the site being posted. So if you want to post a link to Bob LobLaw’s Law Blog where he talks about this, you can, provided you are not him. How do we know that? We don’t, but your post history is usually telling. If you have 10 comments this month linking to that domain, we will wipe it. If your post history is full of commenting on cat pictures, video games, random re stuff, and sports teams and this link comes out of no where, it is fine. If you wish to break these rules, and have a VERY GOOD reason send us a modmail and ask. We are reasonable people. These things are designed to kill low effort spam/seo posts, not to kill discussion and the sharing of information. It is the baseline we use though. So just theoretically, there is an ongoing discussion about west coast valuations and if its a peak which went on an interesting tangent about the big earthquake that is over due. If someone wrote an indepth post about that and wanted to link to a published report they are an author on for more information, that is probably something we would allow as long as the intent wasn’t for business purposes. On that same post if someone put “this is why you buy gold. You can buy gold at myshittydomain.com” that is not going to be allowed. IE if you aren’t sure but are attempting to share information, not monetize this sub, send a mod mail and we will help you figure it out. So TLDR if you have a link in your post, please check and make sure reddits spam control didn’t kill it. If so, hit up the mods and we will fix it. If you want to post links, please do so as long as they are on topic and you are not using them to try to profit from this sub and/or its users. submitted by /u/NumNumLobster [link] [comments]