We scanned 1000 random Product Hunt project URLs using the DLX7 free security scanner. The results were highly consistent. Most applications landed between C and B. At a glance, that appears acceptable. It is not.
Every day, after launching, makers are contacted on LinkedIn and X by people offering to sell votes. As the Product Hunt team, we are very much aware of this and really hate it. We have systems in place to neutralize this type of gaming. Every vote counts for a different number of points on Product Hunt. A couple examples:
An account with a recently created gmail address and no history of quality contributions on Product Hunt: this vote will count for 0 points. Yes, this might be a well intentioned user, but we take a conservative approach to protect the community. If the account has a company email or applies for verification on Product Hunt, that's a different story.
An account with a company email address linked to a legitimate LinkedIn account with a history of meaningful contributions on Product Hunt: this vote carries significant weight.
A couple questions for the community:
Are there specific accounts on Product Hunt that you suspect participate in vote selling? You can reply here or email report@producthunt.co
What would you want to see us do differently here?
You can call me JD, I ve spent the past several years building businesses in a few very different worlds: hospitality with Montrose Inn, consulting through ProLine, and now product-building with Provoke.
I wouldn t say I have it all figured out I just really enjoy building things, learning fast, and trying to create products and experiences that genuinely help people. Some of that has looked like running businesses in the real world, some of it has looked like solving messy problems for other companies, and some of it now looks like building new tools from scratch.
