Both bans came from the same root mistake: posting external links before I had earned trust. Here is what changed and how I recovered.
By James, indie dev and Chrome extension builder
2 sitewide bans
Both from the same mistake: external links on accounts that had not earned enough trust yet.
11 days total recovery
Day 5 appeal on ban one, day 9 approval on ban two after the first appeal was denied.
0 bans since
The posting protocol below has kept both accounts clean for 7 months and counting.
A friend texted me on day 4 after the first ban. He said my comments were not showing up in a thread we had both been active in. I assumed it was a weird glitch and closed the tab.
That night I opened an incognito window and typed my Reddit profile URL. What loaded was a blank page with the text "Sorry, nobody on Reddit goes by that name."
I refreshed four times. Same result. I tried a different browser. Same result. Then I texted my friend and asked him to check my profile URL directly. He told me it was a blank page for him too.
That is the exact moment I understood what had happened. Reddit had not sent a single notification. No email, no in-app alert, nothing. For four days I had been logging in, commenting, and replying to threads, and nobody had seen any of it.
The embarrassment hit harder than I expected. I had an account with 340 karma that I had spent weeks building. I had been careful, or so I thought. What I did not understand yet was that Reddit's spam detection runs on behavioral signals, not on intent. The algorithm did not care that my content was genuinely useful. It cared that my posting pattern looked like a bot's.
If you suspect you have been banned, run through these five steps in order. Do not skip ahead.
Copy your Reddit profile URL
It looks like reddit.com/user/yourusername. Make sure you have the exact spelling. One wrong character and you will get a false "not found" message.
Open a private or incognito browser window
This is critical. Your regular browser has your session cookies, so Reddit will show your profile regardless. Incognito strips that. Use it every time.
Paste the URL and check what loads
If you see your profile normally, you are not sitewide shadowbanned. If you see "Sorry, nobody on Reddit goes by that name," that is the confirmation. Screenshot it immediately.
Post in r/ShadowBan for a bot confirmation
The subreddit r/ShadowBan has an automated bot. Post anything there, then check whether the bot replies confirming your status. If your post does not appear at all, that also confirms the ban.
Review your last 10 comments across different subreddits
Log out and browse to your profile. If every recent comment shows 0 upvotes, "[removed]", or simply does not appear to other users, the ban is active even if the incognito test was inconclusive.
One thing people confuse constantly
A collapsed comment (Crowd Control) looks exactly like a shadowban from your side. The difference is whether your profile page returns "nobody goes by that name" in incognito. If your profile loads but your comments seem hidden, that is likely subreddit-level filtering, not a sitewide ban.
Account age
4 weeks
Karma at time
~340
Time from post to ban
Under 2 hours
Days before I noticed
4 days
I had built a Chrome extension that let people export Reddit thread comments into a spreadsheet for research. It was genuinely useful. I was excited about it. That excitement was the problem.
I had a Notion page documenting how the extension worked. Instead of posting it once and seeing how it landed, I posted the link in r/sideprojects, then r/Entrepreneur, then r/webdev, all within a 90-minute window. Each post had a slightly different title but the same Notion link.
Reddit's system does not care about the title variations. It tracks the domain. Three posts to the same external URL across three subreddits in 90 minutes is an automated red flag, especially on a 4-week-old account with 340 karma. The sitewide shadowban came through before I even checked back on the first thread.
I did not know for four days. The whole time I thought the posts were just getting lost in the noise. I was commenting in other threads, replying to people, acting normally. None of it was visible to anyone.
I sent the appeal on day 5 after the ban. Reddit uses a contact form at reddit.com/contact. I chose "I think my account has been wrongfully suspended" as the subject category, even though I knew it was not entirely wrongful.
My first draft was defensive. I explained that my content was genuine, that I was a real person, and that I had not intended to spam. A friend who had been through this before told me to delete it and start over. She said defensiveness never works. Specificity and accountability do.
I rewrote it. The appeal that got the ban lifted looked approximately like this:
Sample Appeal Text (Adapted from My Actual Message)
"My account was recently shadowbanned and I believe I understand why. I posted the same external link to three different subreddits within about 90 minutes. I can see how that pattern looks identical to spam behavior, even though the content was a personal side project I built. I was not aware that cross-posting a link in rapid succession would trigger this, but after reading Reddit's self-promotion guidelines more carefully, I understand the problem.
Going forward I will limit any external links to one post per week at most, I will not share the same URL across multiple subreddits, and I will continue building karma through comments before sharing anything promotional again.
I am genuinely interested in participating in these communities. I would appreciate the opportunity to do that correctly. Thank you for reviewing this."
Response came on day 11 (seven-day turnaround from my send date). The ban was lifted with a note that any future violations could result in a permanent suspension. I saved that email.
What worked: specific acknowledgment of what I did, clear evidence I understood the rule I broke, and a concrete plan rather than a vague promise to do better. What did not work in my first draft: saying "I was not trying to spam" without explaining what I would change.
Account age
11 weeks
Karma at time
~1,800
Time from post to ban
Same day
Hours before I noticed
Under 24 hours
This was a different account I had been building for 11 weeks with 1,800 karma. I was much more careful this time. Or so I thought.
I needed to hire a part-time developer for the extension. r/forhire seemed like the obvious place. I wrote what I thought was a clean job posting, included a Calendly link for booking interviews, and hit submit without adding the required post flair.
Two problems stacked on each other in that one post. First, r/forhire requires specific flair (Hiring) before the automod approves a post. Missing flair gets the post auto-removed, and repeated auto-removals from the same account get escalated. Second, the Calendly domain is flagged by Reddit's spam system across multiple subreddits because it appears in a high volume of spam posts.
Unlike the first ban, I caught this within 24 hours. After the first experience I had started doing a quick incognito check every morning. That habit paid off. Knowing within a day rather than four days meant I could start the appeal process much faster.
First Appeal: Denied
I sent the first appeal within 48 hours of catching the ban. I thought my previous experience made me good at this. I explained the situation, acknowledged the Calendly link, and described my posting plan. The reply that came back on day 7 said the ban would remain in place.
Looking back, the first appeal was too focused on explaining the context and not focused enough on accountability. I spent too many words describing what r/forhire was for and why my post was legitimate. Reddit admins do not need that context. They need evidence that you understand what the problem was and that it will not happen again.
Second Appeal: Approved (Day 9)
I waited 10 days after the first denial before submitting a second appeal. The second appeal was shorter and more direct. I listed three specific things: what I did wrong (no flair, Calendly link, which is flagged), what I understood about why those things triggered the ban, and what my new rule set was going forward.
Approved on day 9 after that second submission. The key difference was tone and specificity. Less narrative, more precision. The admin reviewing these appeals is probably handling dozens of them per day. The faster you get to the point, the better.
These are the specific behaviors that get accounts flagged, ranked roughly by how fast they pull a sitewide ban versus slower account degradation.
New account posting external links immediately
Reddit's ML flags accounts that go straight to link sharing without any community participation. This is the single biggest trigger.
Posting the same link across 3 or more subreddits in one session
Treated as spam behavior. Even if the content is legitimate, the pattern looks identical to bot activity.
Including Calendly, affiliate, or tracking links in posts
These domains are on Reddit's watch list. Calendly especially gets flagged in subreddits like r/forhire almost automatically.
Low karma plus any external URL in the post body
Below roughly 100 comment karma, any external URL in your post body is high risk. Use a comment reply to share the link instead, once you have established credibility.
DMs to users who do not follow you
Cold DMs triggered by a Reddit post count as unsolicited contact. Even one complaint from a recipient can flag your account.
Missing subreddit flair on a post that requires it
Some subreddits auto-remove unflagged posts after a few minutes. Repeat removals stack up and can trigger wider review.
Posting in rapid succession across subreddits
Reddit tracks inter-post timing. More than 2 to 3 posts within a single hour on a new account reads as automated.
Account age under 30 days with any promotional content
Age is a trust signal. Promotional posts from accounts under 30 days old get extra scrutiny from both automod and the sitewide spam filter.
This distinction matters because the fix is completely different depending on which one you have. Most Reddit ban threads on Google conflate all four.
Issued by Reddit admins. Your posts and comments become invisible to everyone except yourself. You can still log in, post, and comment, but nobody sees anything. No notification is sent. Only detectable via incognito test or r/ShadowBan bot.
Appeal path: Yes, via reddit.com/contact. Turnaround is 3 to 14 days.
Issued by subreddit moderators. Only affects that specific community. You receive a modmail notification. Your account works fine everywhere else. Moderators set the duration: temporary or permanent.
Appeal path: Yes, reply to the modmail. Success rate varies by subreddit culture.
Not a ban at all. An automated rule in the subreddit configuration removes your post or comment instantly. No strike against your account. Common triggers: new account, low karma, certain keywords, missing flair. The post just disappears.
Appeal path: Message modmail explaining what you posted. Mods can manually approve it.
A subreddit setting that collapses comments from accounts with low karma or new accounts. Your comment exists and is visible to you, but other users see it as collapsed. This confuses a lot of people into thinking they are shadowbanned when they are not.
Appeal path: Not applicable. Build karma and the filtering resolves automatically.
These are not suggestions. After two bans I treat these as hard rules. The accounts I run on this protocol have stayed clean for 7 months.
No external links for the first 60 days
This is the rule that ended both of my bans permanently. No links in posts, no links in comments, nothing. Build pure community karma first.
Reach 500 comment karma before any external URL
The 500 threshold is where Reddit's spam filter relaxes noticeably. I tested this across two accounts and the pattern held both times.
Maximum 1 link post per 7-day window per account
Even after you have the karma, spreading link posts out this conservatively keeps the pattern looking human rather than promotional.
Check subreddit rules before every single post
Flair requirements, link restrictions, self-promotion ratios, minimum account age. Most subreddits list this in the sidebar. It takes 90 seconds and has saved me from at least 6 post removals since the second ban.
Week 1: lurk and upvote only, no posting
This sounds slow. It is. It also signals to the algorithm that you are a genuine reader, not a drive-by promoter. The weeks that follow are measurably smoother.
Week 2: comments only, no links or self-promotion
Text-only comments on topics you actually know. Answer a question. Add context to a debate. Confirm someone's experience. Build genuine presence.
Week 3: first text post, still no external URLs
A text post asking for feedback, sharing a lesson learned, or documenting an experience. This is the warmup phase that both shadowbans skipped.
Never post the same link to more than 2 subreddits total
Even spread across weeks. Reddit tracks cross-post velocity. One subreddit is almost always enough if the targeting is right.
Before I post in any subreddit now, I take 90 seconds to read the sidebar rules. I use MediaFast to check subreddit rules and requirements before I post. It would have caught the r/forhire flair issue immediately, which would have saved me the second ban entirely. The subreddit sidebar had the flair requirement written in plain text. I just did not read it.
Honest answer: it depends on whether the account had real community credibility before the ban. For both of my accounts, the answer was yes, because I had built genuine relationships in specific subreddits and the karma was earned through real participation, not farming. For a throwaway account used purely for promotion, the calculus is different.
Reasons to appeal and come back
You have 500 or more karma from genuine community engagement, not farming.
The account has post history in specific subreddits where you have built actual reputation.
The ban was from a single mistake rather than a pattern of promotional posts.
The appeal process gives you a clear record that you understand what went wrong.
Starting over means rebuilding from zero karma with no credit for what you already earned.
Reasons to reconsider
The account was primarily used for self-promotion and has little genuine post history.
You have received multiple subreddit bans in addition to the sitewide shadowban.
The original appeal was denied and a second attempt was also denied. A third rarely succeeds.
You cannot honestly commit to the behavior changes required, in which case a new account will just get banned again anyway.
The account is under 60 days old with under 200 karma. The trust investment is low enough that starting fresh is faster.
Both bans taught me the same lesson from two different angles. The first showed me that timing and domain clustering matter more than content quality. The second showed me that subreddit-specific rules matter as much as sitewide rules, and that ignoring them is just as costly.
The practical shift was small but the effect was large: I stopped treating Reddit as a broadcast channel and started treating it as a community with its own norms. Every subreddit has different rules about links, flair, karma minimums, and self-promotion ratios. Those rules are written down. They just require reading.
Now I check subreddit rules before every single post. I also use MediaFast to understand subreddit rules before posting, which would have flagged the r/forhire flair requirement before I submitted. That kind of pre-flight check takes less than a minute and it has kept my accounts clean since.
The temptation to just make a new account is real. After the second ban I thought about it seriously for about an hour. The reason I did not go that route was simple: a new account starts at zero. The 1,800 karma I had built on the second account represented real community credibility. Throwing that away and starting the warmup clock over from scratch would have cost more time than the appeal process.
MediaFast surfaces subreddit requirements, flair rules, and karma minimums before you hit submit. The check that prevents the ban.
Get traffic to your tool from Reddit
Get recommended by AI tools through Reddit
Answers to the questions I had after getting banned, and the ones I still get asked about appeals, timing, and recovery.
In my two experiences, the first appeal took 7 days to get a response and the second took 9 days on the successful second attempt. The general range is 3 to 14 days. Reddit does not have a defined SLA for appeals. Some people get responses in 48 hours, others wait the full two weeks. Do not submit a second appeal until at least 7 to 10 days have passed with no response.
Yes. My second shadowban appeal was denied on the first attempt and approved on the second. The key difference in the second attempt was specificity: I explained exactly what I had posted, why it triggered the filter, what I understood about the rule I had violated, and what I would do differently. Vague apologies do not work. Specific acknowledgment and a concrete plan do.
No. A sitewide shadowban does not lift automatically. You must submit an appeal via reddit.com/contact and wait for admin review. Subreddit-level bans can be temporary (moderators set a duration), but a true sitewide shadowban requires human review and approval to lift. Waiting it out without appealing is not a strategy.
A shadowban is sitewide and invisible. Your posts and comments disappear across all of Reddit and you receive no notification. A subreddit ban only affects one community and comes with a modmail explaining the reason. Many people confuse these two because the symptoms (posts not showing up) look similar. The incognito test distinguishes them: if your profile shows "nobody goes by that name" in incognito, it is a sitewide ban. If your profile loads normally, the issue is subreddit-level.
Based on my own testing across multiple accounts, 500 comment karma is where the risk drops noticeably. Some subreddits set their own minimums (often listed in the sidebar), but from a sitewide spam filter perspective, 500 is the threshold I trust. Below 100 is high risk. Between 100 and 500 is moderate risk, especially for external domains that are not widely known.
Technically yes, but Reddit's ban evasion detection is sophisticated. If you use the same IP, device, browser, or posting patterns, the new account gets flagged quickly. Reddit explicitly prohibits creating accounts to evade bans in its user agreement. The better path is to appeal, get the ban lifted, and then change your behavior. If the original account is gone permanently, you need a fully clean setup: different device, VPN, and entirely different posting approach.
