Why replies get removed
Three separate systems can remove a comment, and they behave differently.
Site-wide spam filtering acts on patterns across your whole account: repeated links to one domain, near-identical text across threads, and posting velocity. Removals here are usually silent — the comment appears normal to you and is invisible to everyone else.
AutoModerator is configured per community and enforces thresholds the community rarely publishes: account age, karma minimums, banned domains, keyword triggers. It acts instantly.
Human moderators apply judgement, usually about whether a comment is fundamentally promotional. They are the slowest and the hardest to predict.
This tool checks for the signals the first two respond to. It cannot predict the third.
The triggers that matter most
Links, especially to your own domain. The highest-weighted signal by a distance. A reply that describes something and lets interested people ask survives where a reply containing a URL does not.
Marketing register. "Check it out", "free trial", "we built" — phrasing lifted from a landing page reads as advertising to humans and filters alike.
Missing disclosure. Mentioning something you are connected to without saying so is the fastest route from removed comment to banned account, because it reads as deception rather than promotion.
Thin answers. Two sentences containing a product name is the archetypal drive-by. Depth is protective.
Single-option answers. Naming only your own product, when the question invites comparison, reads as a pitch no matter how it is worded.
What consistently works instead
Answer the question as though you had no product at all, thoroughly enough that the reply stands alone. Then, if yours is genuinely relevant, mention it in one sentence with an explicit disclosure — "disclosure: I built one of these" — alongside at least one alternative you do not own.
This is slower, it converts better, and it survives. It also produces the kind of comment that gets quoted by AI assistants later, which a link drop never will.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Questions about removals
How do I tell if my comment was silently removed?
Open the thread in a logged-out browser or a private window. If the comment is not there, it was filtered. Logged in, removed comments often still appear to their author.
Does this tool know a specific subreddit's rules?
No. It checks the signals common across communities and site-wide filters. Individual communities have their own published rules and unpublished AutoModerator thresholds, so read the sidebar before posting.
Is one link always too many?
No, but it raises risk meaningfully, particularly from an account with no history in that community. With established history and a genuinely relevant link, it is usually fine.
What should I do if I get shadowbanned?
Stop posting immediately, wait, and build normal participation history elsewhere without links. Appealing works occasionally; continuing to post identical content does not.
REPLY WHERE IT COUNTS
Fewer, better replies beat volume every time.
MentionSpot finds the small number of threads genuinely worth your reply, so the time you have goes into quality rather than searching.
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