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
Super new here and launching today but quickly realizing I could have prepared better. That said, it's disappointing to see how common vote buying/selling is.
Great to hear this! We’ve been trying to approach our launches with integrity and avoid any kind of system gaming.
That said, it did feel a bit discouraging at times—like the playing field wasn’t always level. Really appreciate the transparency and the effort to address it.
Tobira.ai
Honest take: the problem isn't the DMs (we got plenty after our launch last week, declined all of them). The real problem is the opacity of the system itself.
When you can't tell how much a vote weighs or where it came from, you can't trust the leaderboard. And when you watch certain products spike, drop, then spike again - that pattern speaks for itself, but there's no way to call it out with confidence.
Fighting the supply of fake votes is a losing battle. Fighting the incentive to buy them - by making vote quality visible - is where the leverage actually is. Even a simple signal like "this vote came from a verified account with X history" would change the dynamic completely.
Appreciate you opening this up publicly. That's a start.
Product Hunt
@olia_nemirovski thanks for the push Olia. Transparency is a double edge sword. If we reveal every signal we monitor to distinguish between genuine and inauthentic users, we make gaming of Product Hunt easier. Given this, is there something specifically you would like to see on Product Hunt?
Unfortunately, we won't be revealing how many points each vote counts for.
@olia_nemirovski This is a great idea! Together with this "no history of quality contributions on Product Hunt: this vote will count for 0 points." this wil fix 90% I believe.
What I found out at another Forum is that sometimes it helps to open up a chat and let people talk live to each other about products and tech news. People who are chatting with each other can get to trust each other and upvote their credibility. Important is not to open the chat at the same time every week. Otherwise this can be figured out upfront.
Apparent for Gmail
Hit 4th place on Sat, and personally didn't receive any solicitations, which is encouraging. I'm a new user though?
I would say keeping your "secret sauce" private, in terms of how you filter votes, likely might be valuable to prevent gaming of the system.
Product Hunt
@apparentforgmail Congrats on the 4th place. Glad to hear there were no solicitations.
Apparent for Gmail
@mikekerzhner Thanks! overall, very impressed with the platform.
minimalist phone: creating folders
The reach of this “mafia” is much wider than it seems.
One person might be in control, but there are dozens of executors just doing their part.
Example:
When I was launching, I got around 8 offers to buy votes.
But there’s another side to this:
During the launch, people also DM me asking me to support their product. And I like supporting others, if I genuinely believe in what they’re building.
The problem starts when the same 5 – 6 people message me 3 times a week, asking me to support different products. Or when I receive the same message from different people (who are not makers in the launch) to support that product.
So you start wondering:
– Are they real friends of the founders who just want to help?
– Are they temporarily part of those teams?
– Or are they part of some organised “upvote network” offering these services?
For contrast:
@konrad_sx reached out to me on launch day on his own, offered help, made a list of contacts, reached out to them, and didn’t ask for anything in return. It was genuine.
But then there are these “groups” operating in the background.
Which means you really have to start distinguishing who’s acting out of genuine support, and who’s part of something more organised.
+ I started to notice that even accounts that have been active here for a long time have started to "lobby" for several products in a suspicious way. And at this point, I'm starting to be sceptical whether they are part of something or if they are really just trying to help.
Hatable
@konrad_sx @busmark_w_nika Also, the issue with these scamsters is that you call them out publicly and they start writing bad reviews for the product.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@konrad_sx @shardul_lavekar Yes, this is also the thing.
Product Hunt
@konrad_sx @busmark_w_nika do you have specific examples of accounts lobbying for votes? Any specific examples of bad reviews that are retribution for public callouts?
Have you considerd introducing a lightweight identity verification (like social or domain linking) that helps legit users gain voting weight faster?
@charlotte_combes I just joined PH not too long ago and they asked for verification through LinkedIn, Github, and work email. I'm not sure if those contribute to voting weight (or simply negatively impact those who don't verify).
Product Hunt
@charlotte_combes yep, we have user verification.
I received 10 different requests just for that for a project with 1 or 2 upvotes (my bad for the lame prep...)
Product Hunt
@squerne Always worth it to launch, even if you don't get traction the first few times.
Scade.pro
"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."
Am I correct in understanding that the use of corporate email is no longer prohibited, and that, in fact, when combined with other provisions, it produces a more powerful result?
This article states it differently https://help.producthunt.com/en/articles/771527-personal-account-vs-company-account
Product Hunt
@maria_anosova Every account has to be a personal account. But a personal account can have a work email linked to it.
Scade.pro
@mikekerzhner Ok
Thank you for the explanation✨
PopTask
just launched PopTask today and i've already gotten 12 to 15 DMs on LinkedIn and directly in my email inbox offering to sell upvotes
it's frustrating because as a solo maker you want real feedback, not fake numbers
good to know the team has systems to catch this, appreciate it 🙌🏽
i'll forward the account details on your provided email 💯
Product Hunt
@lilhadi Congrats on the launch! Sounds great RE the report.
vote selling exists because "product of the day" became resume material. you created a status game worth gaming and now youre surprised theres a market for it. fixing supply side is whack-a-mole, the demand is structural. as long as a PH badge on your landing page converts, people will pay for votes