Vote selling on Product Hunt
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?
Replies
It's great to see the team being so transparent about the weighting system. The "zero-weight" approach for suspicious accounts is a solid deterrent, but I wonder if there’s room for a "reputation recovery" path for those well-intentioned new users—perhaps through a manual review or linking more social proof?
One thing I'd love to see is more real-time feedback for makers when a vote is flagged as low-quality; it would help them understand why their numbers might be fluctuating and keep the competition fair.
Product Hunt
@kevin_xu01 A great way to boost your account is to apply for verification.
@mikekerzhner Appreciate the clarification! Verification seems like the most straightforward way to build 'on-chain' trust here. It’s good to know the team prioritizes quality over quantity so clearly.
Glad to read this Mike!
Sometimes fighting for top positions seems to be impossible because of that and it's unfair.
I'll start paying more attention on that and of course I'll let you know about it.
Prosaic
I think one of the bigger problems is the standard "Hey, you seem active on PH..." openers which basically mean "Hey, I think your vote counts more on PH" which is several products bypassing the low-vote thing also and sending messages to strangers all day long. The measure of total votes/score a product gets and the actual, genuinely excited user for it would, in my mind, have a huge mismatch. Most people who simply could not care enough would just go and vote on PH so the person stops bothering them. There is also a spirit of VoteForVote which is "Please vote for me and if you launch something, you can expect my support."
I do not have answers off the top of my head but it seems the solutions (scored votes) have cropped up a new layer of issues.
That email you listed doesn't seem to be working. I tried to send a report about someone who reached out to me for my launch today to sell upvotes and named and linked a few of his linkedin posts showing examples of others he had worked with. Named names. 1 was actually a product of the day on their day. I didn't check the others but anyway wanted to send you the details.
Product Hunt
@koalr sorry about that. Misconfigured permissions. Should work now.
I get what you’re trying to do here, but this approach is hurting genuine makers more than it’s stopping vote selling.
You’re saying new or low-history accounts get little to no weight, but for many of us, our real users are not Product Hunt users. When we bring actual customers to support a product they genuinely use, their votes get discounted. That’s not gaming, that’s real traction.
At the same time, I’ve seen products with barely working features rank in top spots. So clearly the system isn’t fully solving the problem it’s targeting.
A friend of mine launched twice with 2000+ real users and still got almost no visibility. That’s incredibly frustrating... and honestly makes me regret recommending Product Hunt to him for his efforts.
Feels like the system currently favors:
• Existing PH network
• “Insiders” with history
• Hype over real usage
instead of rewarding actual product-market fit.
If you really want to fix this, there has to be a better way to distinguish bought votes vs real customer support. Right now they’re being treated the same, and that’s the core issue.
Product Hunt
@ankit_mishra15 sorry to hear about the frustration. What is your recommendation for distinguishing paid voters vs authentic voters? IMO the bar for becoming a trusted Product Hunt user is fairly low, just apply for verification.