Reddit comments VS thread creation

[Sutra]

Reddit says no more that 10% of your posts should be to your site or site you benefit from. Otherwise you'll be marked as a spammer.

To prevent being a spammer I've made sure that only 10% of the threads I create on Reddit go back to my site. But do thread comments count towards that?

If I can I make thread comments instead of solely having to start threads that would make it a lot easier.

 

[contract]

Not true.

You can do 90% your own threads.

Just have to submit threads linking to random domains once in a while.

If this was the case, Youtube links would be blocked. (There's a big hint in this sentence)

 

[Potatoe]

Nah it's a 1 : 10 ratio of posting your own content : posting other people's content like OP said, but they're not just going to automatically ban your account or site the second you break the ratio. It's a good idea to follow it none the less. In reddit's words, it's a "general rule of thumb."

Via red dit.com/wiki/selfpromotion

• "You should submit from a variety of sources (a general rule of thumb is that 10% or less of "your posting and conversation" should link to your own content), talk to people in the comments (and not just on your own links), and generally be a good member of the community."

"Your posting and conversation" - so leaving comments on a post that aren't about "your own content" will help you get within range. The 10% rule includes anything you submit to reddit, even if it's a comment on another thread.

"Your own content" - Notice they refer to it as your content... not your domain or your site. So if you post links to 4 of your own youtube videos, then you post 5 comments where you plug your Twitter, then you post a link to your site... You're at 10:10 for self-promotional posts.

Some users care about this more than others do and will report you if you annoy them at all, some subreddits care about it more than others, and some even have a better ratio like 3:10 so you can post more of your own content without breaking the rules. I'm not saying there isn't room to skirt any of these guidelines and lots of subs are modded differently, and I have no idea how the algo actually works beyond what the guidelines say, but it's easy enough to follow the rules from that wiki.

So what stops somebody from submitting their competitor's links over and over from a bunch of different accounts until their competitor's domain is banned from reddit? No idea, and I don't know how somebody would appeal that if it happened to them, but it's kind of a scary thought that a malicious competitor could take away your ability to have your site posted on reddit at all.

Eventually you'll have regular users submitting your content to reddit all the time and it's always a nice bonus.

Aim to be at the point where you don't even have to think about submitting your own posts to reddit because your audience will do it for you.

Edit: TLDR - Yes, you can make comments too, and those will count.

 

[Sutra]

Thank you @contract and thank you @j a m e s for that in-depth reply. That clears up a lot questions I had.

After reading that thread about getting shadowbanned I was like, "Well shit, I better learn more about using Reddit" hah.

 

[Samwise89]

You can get away with 100% until someone decides to report you. The reddit algo only seems to watch for vote rings.