How Much Time Does It for Answer to Be Visible Again After Appeal to Quora
I Got Permanently Banned from Quora and I'1000 (Kinda) Not Sure Why
Hither's what happened:
- Friday night Nov ten, 2017, I log in to my email and find a bulletin from Quora: "Hello, some of your recent content on Quora appears to violate's Quora's policy on Spam."
- So I got iv more of those. Bam, bam, bam, bam. All on material I'd written the day before.
- Post-obit those v messages, I and so got this bulletin from Quora: "Quora moderation blocked you from editing on Quora for this reason: repeated policy violations."
- The side by side twenty-four hour period, I got six more on content that I'd written on Friday before the violation. And so the 11 total violations were all on content written within 48 hours.
- I fire off appeal messages offer the reasons why I think that these violations happened and my programme of action, essentially proverb, "Hey, I'one thousand sorry for using links to my site. The links were relevant, and the stuff I wrote was answering the question. Regardless, I won't practice information technology whatever more!"
- Monday morning Quora replies: "Quora moderation banned you from Quora."
And just like that I was banned.
How I got started on Quora.
I started writing on Quora in May of 2017. I'd read an article on Gary Vaynerchuk where he said he got his beginning answering questions about wine on Twitter. Eventually, this helped him build his massive two.6m following.
The days of building a huge organic Twitter post-obit without spending a ton of money were probably over, then I moved to the adjacent all-time thing: Quora.
Quora, if y'all don't already know, is a question-and-answer site. Users ask questions regarding a variety of topics including wellness, wealth, self-comeback, books, movies, whatever. Then, different users answer those questions. The best questions are awarded "upvotes" which tells Quora'south algorithms to shift the answer to the pinnacle of the list. The higher on the list you are, the more than views you lot become.
In fact, if you have a super popular answer on Quora, at that place'due south a chance that information technology tin can get viral and spread amidst all of their newsletters, to the front page, shared on Facebook, Twitter — you proper noun it.
Quora is, without a dubiousness, the easiest platform to get a ton of views quickly. So, when I first started writing, I included links to my Instagram. At the time, I was growth hacking my IG account, and thought that the high Quora views would translate into quick followers, which it did.
Only something crazy started to happen…
People from all over Quora would find ways to get into direct contact with me. I'd get emails. People I'd never met would bulletin me on Facebook. There were LinkedIn requests. I even got the odd text. People were going out of their manner to discover me and enquire me direct for communication.
Shocked by the impact I was making, I took a step back. I saw that I was on to something pretty big. The huge number of views I was getting was unlike anything I could get anywhere else, including my Instagram account (which has over 10,000 followers as of this writing).
Playing it safe…
Earlier jumping into a huge marketing push with Quora, I reviewed Quora's terms-of-service to make sure that I could self-promote without too much issue. Hither's what Quora's TOS says about spam (accent mine):
On Quora, spam is defined every bit one or more than questions, answers, posts, comments, or letters whose purpose appears to exist to direct traffic to external commercial sites while providing petty to no value back to the Quora Community.
Answers that refer to external websites to answer the question should provide a summary of how the reference answers the question. If the gist of the answer is not understandable by the writing on Quora, then the question will violate answering policies and guidelines. Answers that drive traffic to external sites for promotional or commercial purposes and do non sufficiently answer the question are considered spam.
Astroturfing is when a user creates a large corporeality of content on Quora at a fast pace with a desire to promote content that is deceptive or factually wrong, meet . Astroturfing is besides considered spam on Quora and may also violate the policies on self-plagiarism, see [link].
Questions that are created with the purpose of alluring spam content are also considered spam and may be deleted.
It'due south alright to mail most your production or company on Quora, either in an answer to a relevant question or as a mail service on your Quora blog, but repeatedly posting the same information or intentionally misapplying topics on posts in lodge to gain more visibility may exist considered spamming.
If topics are misapplied to a mail service or a blog, and then Quora might take action as described [link].
Chapter links are not immune on Quora and whatsoever content that employ chapter links will exist considered spam, with the exception of the accounts approved for Quora'due south airplane pilot plan described at [link].
If your content is adamant to be spam:
Your account may exist blocked or banned.
Content identified as spam may be deleted."
And so that's the rules. Seems pretty straight forward.
What's not-then-straight-forward, equally I'd later learn, is what they consider "adept content" and "bad content." And make sure to notice the phrase "If the gist of the answer is not understandable by the writing on Quora…" Leaves a lot of room for estimation, eh?
I started writing… a lot.
Subsequently spending a calendar month to create a funnel website, I then spent near of my days on Quora answering questions near making money online, especially on Amazon (since that'due south my primary source of income and the 1 I'm nearly knowledgeable virtually). In addition to Amazon, I wrote most marketing funnels, books, Instagram consulting, and even the occasional board game.
The website that I directed people to has two atomic number 82 magnets fastened to it. A atomic number 82 magnet is a valuable slice of data offered in exchange for a prospect's electronic mail and/or phone number. The starting time pb magnet was a brusque PDF report and was well-nigh finding assisting products to sell on Amazon. Therefore, I used that onefor answering questions that were obviously related to Amazon or more commonly "How do I make coin with only a [insert number here] budget?" The second atomic number 82 magnet was a costless guide series titled The 26 Ways to Make Money Online. For those who were just getting started with business or weren't totally sold on Amazon, this was the redundancy plan.
Both of these guides were completely gratis. There was a sales page after the fact, just information technology was totally optional. If you didn't want to spend money, you didn't have to.
Additionally, nix in the cloth is falsified or regurgitated from some other source. When it comes to money-making methods, if I've done it and it works, I write well-nigh it. That's information technology. No malicious intent any. Additionally, information technology'south all backed up with a 30-day guarantee. Yous don't like the stuff I write? No problem! You get an firsthand refund, no questions asked.
My kickoff spam violations…
In September of 2017, I got a few spam violations. I totally deserved them. When you're writing 25 answers a day, information technology gets tiresome. And so I'd cutting-and-paste a few answers. Proceed in mind — this was just a few, perhaps x–15 total out of 125 answers per week. Quora let me know that I shouldn't do that, deleted those answers, and I raised my hands in surrender: "I won't practice information technology over again."
I'd learned from dealing with Amazon for the concluding 3 years that when the boss says "stop" y'all better fucking stop.
So I changed the hustle. And let me tell you: it was intense.
Consider these stats:
- I wrote 15–25 answers a 24-hour interval, five days per week.
- Each of my answers was 300–500 words in length (or sometimes more). So I was putting out 10,000+ words of content some days. To put that in perspective, the average book has fifty,000 words in it. Then I was writing a volume a calendar week for Quora.
- Everything I wrote was 100% original. It might have been the aforementioned data repackaged or written with dissimilar words, simply if I feel that the all-time respond to "How do you plow $ii,500 into $10,000 in 12-months?" is "Amazon", chances are the respond to"What's the best style to start a business with $2,500?" is going to get more-or-less the same respond. Why the hell would the core information be unlike?
- All of this content helped make Quora a pop place. I got 5,000,000+ views in just a few brusque months. I was the summit viewed writer in a ton of categories, too, including Business, Wanting and Making Coin, and Entrepreneurship.
- I Buffered everything. And then not only was I helping promote my own stuff — I was besides bringing new folks to Quora.
And I won't lie: information technology sent a ton of traffic to my site. I was getting 500+ new visitors a day off the content I wrote on Quora. To me, that was the trade off. "I give yous a book's worth of actionable content every calendar week that keeps your visitors reading and y'all allow me post links on my answers. Deal?"
Only and so, October eight, I got another spam smack on the wrist. This time, I wasn't sure what for. Everything I was writing was original and information technology was all relevant. Furthermore, I explained how each link was related to the material. But peradventure I did something stupid?
And then, I wrote an appeal letter…
I've written these before, more often than not to Amazon, because Amazon, similar Quora, uses more often than not algorithms to run their moderation show. Sometimes, posts go defenseless in the crossfire, whether the platform meant to or not.
A good appeal letter should have the following items:
- Y'all explaining what you recall happened to earn the violation.
- You explaining what steps you lot'll take to fix what happened.
- Yous explaining what steps you'll take to make sure it never happens again.
And that's what I did. A couple days later, I get this message from one of their moderators (proper noun redacted):
Hi David,
Thank you for writing in. We are very sorry for this feel. Your content was mistakenly flagged to exist in violation of our policies, but is now reinstated.
We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you lot.
Sincerely,
XXXXXX
User Operations
Quora
Cool. So I was in the clear.
From that betoken on, cypher else from Quora…
I kept things going the way that they were. And I was told that a fault was made. So why alter what I was doing? And there were no farther moderation slaps. Felt like everything was good to go.
Of course, equally the month of Oct rolled by and November came, I kept reading from top Quorans about BNBR (be nice be respectful) violations that were banning their accounts. Some fifty-fifty complained that expert writers were being attacked past "rogue moderators", those that had information technology out for popular writers, either through jealousy, colorlessness, or just because they didn't understand the policies themselves.
Every bit i of my clients put information technology, " I have e'er been afraid of Quoras inconsistency in banning and censorship/taking sides then I effort to stay quiet."
I guess I wasn't that quiet.
November ten, 2017 came and I was edit blocked following eleven back-to-back violations.
Three days subsequently and at present I'g banned. Permanently.
Of course, I sent a alphabetic character to appeal the ban. And was told, promptly, that the decision was terminal. Sad trombone.
I've sent another appeal, merely at this bespeak, what'due south the apply? Everything I spent 6 months working on, every honest respond, every person that I've helped, every follower, upvote, and view… gone.
It'due south as David Hamrick never existed on Quora.
Don't hate on Quora.
Wait, Quora is a cool place and a cool idea and is probably helping out a lot of people. I had a lot of fun writing on it, also. And I'1000 sure there are those that have fun writing and never have hadany event with the mods.
This is just what happens when a social media platform gets too big.
During the growth stages, a platform lets a lot more than slide. They're cool with marketers and businesses, because frankly, those people provide a TON of free content. Probably way more than they should. And during those early years, the content is way more valuable than the badgerer of a commercial link here or in that location.
But then that platform starts getting 450,000,000 views per month. And so what practise they do? They say, "Okay, let's turn the ad machine on." And at present there's ads all over the place on the site.
For case at Quora, at an average bid of $1 per click, it's on par with Facebook and Google.
And who'southward paying for the ads? Companies that have big fat wallets. Shopify, big time gurus like Tai Lopez, or suckers who haven't "tested the waters" yet, so to speak. Information technology's certainly not the petty guys.
And what happens to the little guy who answers questions and posts a link and tries to carve out a niche on their site? They gotta go.
Because it's pay-to-play, baby.
Now that they've got the eyeballs there, they don't need those little guys anymore. Now, big talent starts coming on lath to write answers, and they're given gratuitous reign. Gary Vaynerchuk, Ryan Vacation, Hillary Clinton, fifty-fifty Barack Obama take all written on Quora. Their natural fame and notoriety is plenty to bring even more people to the platform and expand their bulletin beyond their own audience. And they're free to practise what they want, too.
Hell, I've even seen Gary V reposting some of his answers.
Desire to guess how many mod violations he's received?
That's the end of the story.
Cast into exile, I can simply await back on the experience as a positive one. I learned a lot and made a lot of great contacts, and while they were assuasive me to grace their platform with the nonsense rattling around in my brain I actually did make some pretty decent money.
Honestly, it's been kind of a relief, also. Writing 10,000 words a day five days a week is a ton of work. And it was getting so damn deadening answering the aforementioned question over and over and over again in a new and different way each time.
These days, I think I'll write more fun stuff here on Medium.
And don't worry: I fabricated damn sure to read Medium'south guidelines before I started posting.
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Source: https://medium.com/@davehamrick/i-got-permanently-banned-from-quora-and-im-kinda-not-sure-why-8c1d52a53fab
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