Most Reddit removals are automated, and many are silent: the post still looks live to you while everyone else sees nothing. In the first half of 2025 Reddit's admins removed 55.1 million posts and comments, 40.9 million of them for spam, and in the second half of 2025 more than half of all removals came from human moderators. Both numbers are from Reddit's own transparency reports.
So your post died one of four ways, and each way leaves a different trail. This page matches the symptom you're seeing to the filter that caused it, then shows you how to pass that filter next time.
Start here: what do you see?
Match your situation to one of these four. Each points at a different mechanism, and each has a one-step check to confirm it.
1. The post looks fine to you, but gets zero votes and comments
And when you open it logged out, it's gone. That's the sitewide spam filter, or a shadowban if it happens to everything you post. Confirm it: copy the post link and open it in a private browser window. If the post is missing or shows as removed, it was filtered. Your own logged-in view is not evidence; the whole point of these filters is that the author sees nothing wrong.
2. Removed almost instantly, sometimes with a mod message or flair
Speed is the tell. A human can't remove a post in four seconds; AutoMod can. Your draft tripped a specific rule in that subreddit's AutoMod configuration. Confirm it: look for an AutoMod comment under the post or a message in your inbox naming the rule. No message? Check the sub's rules for the obvious candidates: flair, title format, links.
3. Removed minutes to hours later
Delay means a human. Automated filters act at submit time; a moderator saw your post in the queue or the feed and removed it against a community rule. Confirm it: send the subreddit a modmail and ask which rule it broke. Keep it short and polite. Most mod teams answer, and the answer tells you exactly what to change.
4. It never appeared in the sub's new feed at all
Your account is under a karma or account-age floor. Many subreddits set an invisible minimum through AutoMod, and posts from accounts below it never reach the feed. Confirm it: check the sub's posting requirements on its About page and compare them to your comment karma and account age. If either sits below a listed floor, that's your answer.
AutoMod: the subreddit's rules, run as code
AutoModerator is a rules engine every subreddit can configure. It reads each new post at submit time and acts on whatever conditions the mods wrote: keywords, karma thresholds, flair, title format. When it removes your post, the removal is instant and the rule that fired is specific, even when nobody tells you which one.
The configuration lives in a private wiki page, so you can't read the exact rules. But the triggers repeat across thousands of subs:
- Missing flair. Plenty of subs require post flair and silently remove anything without it. This is the easiest removal to fix and one of the most common.
- Banned keywords. Promo-shaped phrases like "check out" in a title get filtered in communities tired of drive-by marketing, r/webdev among them.
- Title format. Some subs require a bracket tag or cap title length; a title that misses the pattern is removed before anyone reads it.
- Combined conditions. A classic config: new account AND external link equals remove. Each half is fine on its own. Together they read as spam.
How to pass it: read the sub's rules and posting requirements before you write, not after. Add the required flair. Copy the title format the top posts use. And if you're sharing your own project, look for the sanctioned lane first: r/SideProject welcomes launches outright, and many stricter subs run a weekly thread for exactly that.
One warning about the retry. Fix the actual trigger before you resubmit, because posting the identical thing again re-trips the same rule and marks you as someone who reposts removed content, which escalates. If you can't tell what fired, modmail the sub and ask; mods would rather answer one question than remove the same post three times.
The sitewide spam filter and your account's trust score
Reddit runs a machine-learning spam filter on every submission, before the target subreddit ever sees it. It accounts for the bulk of those 40.9 million spam removals, and it works silently: no notification, no message, and the post stays visible to you.
The filter scores the post and the account together. Reddit also keeps a hidden trust ranking called the Contributor Quality Score (CQS) with five tiers, and new accounts start at the lowest one. These raise the spam score most reliably:
- URL shorteners. bit.ly and tinyurl links are close to an automatic filter, because they hide the destination.
- Off-platform redirect phrases. "DM me", "link in comments", "link in bio". These are solicitation patterns and the filter knows them.
- The same link across several subs, fast. Five or more subs within a few hours reliably trips detection, and three in quick succession is enough when the domain is new to Reddit.
- New account plus new domain. A young account posting a link to a domain Reddit has never seen is the highest-risk combination on the platform. It is also exactly what a launch post looks like, which is why so many founders hit this wall on day one.
- Low karma plus a fast posting cadence. Bursts of posts from a thin account read as bot behavior.
How to pass it: one full URL at most, spelled out, in the body rather than the title. Skip the redirect phrases entirely. Space cross-posts days apart with different titles written for each community. And give the account time: comment for a week or two before it carries a link post. None of this games the filter. It makes your account look like what it should already be, a person with a history.
One more asymmetry worth knowing: there's no appeal for this filter. A human moderator's removal can be argued in modmail, but the sitewide filter has no inbox. The only fix is the slow one, building enough account trust that the filter stops flagging you. That's why the confirm-it step matters so much here: check the post logged out right after submitting, so you find out in one minute instead of one week.
Karma and account-age gates
Thousands of subreddits set a minimum karma or account age before you can post, enforced through AutoMod. The floor is rarely posted anywhere visible, so the first sign it exists is your post disappearing.
Thresholds vary a lot. Some communities want 10 comment karma; large ones can ask for hundreds, plus 30 or more days of account age, and some check post karma and comment karma separately. That last part explains a common surprise: an account that comments fine in r/startups can still have its first submission removed there.
The confirmation is easier than it used to be. Reddit now surfaces each sub's posting requirements before you post, and the About page lists the rules. If your account sits below any stated floor, no rewrite will save the post; the account itself is the problem.
How to pass it: earn the karma with useful comments in active threads, wait out the age requirement, and start in communities without gates while you build history. There's a full walkthrough in how to get karma on Reddit, none of it involving purchased accounts.
Shadowban: when your whole account is invisible
A shadowban is an account-level filter: everything you post or comment is removed automatically, while your own logged-in view stays completely normal. It's Reddit's oldest anti-spam tool, and it arrives with no notification of any kind.
Don't confuse it with a single filtered post. If one submission died silently but your comments elsewhere still get replies and votes, that was the spam filter acting on one post. If everything you've written for days shows zero engagement, suspect the account.
Two ways to confirm. Open your profile page in a logged-out or private window: a shadowbanned profile shows nothing. Or run the free shadowban checker, which does the same check in a few seconds and tells you plainly.
If you are shadowbanned, appeal at reddit.com/appeals and write like a person: what you posted, why, and what you'll do differently. For causes, recovery odds, and what to do while you wait, read the full guide: Reddit shadowban, explained.
How fast does each removal happen?
Timing is the most reliable clue you have. Removal within seconds means software: AutoMod and the sitewide spam filter both act at submit time. Removal minutes or hours later means a human moderator: people work a queue, machines don't wait.
- Gone in seconds. An AutoMod rule fired. The removal lands before any human could have read the post.
- Never appeared at all. A karma or account-age gate. Instant and invisible: the post is blocked on the way in, so there's nothing to remove later.
- Looks live to you, missing logged out, from the first minute. The sitewide spam filter. It removes silently at submit and tells you nothing.
- Up for a while, then gone. A human moderator, or a post held for review. Some AutoMod setups use a filter action instead of a remove action, which parks the post in the modqueue until a mod approves or removes it, sometimes hours later.
The gap between posting and vanishing usually names the mechanism.
Does deleting and reposting help?
No. Resubmitting a removed post without fixing the trigger is the one move that makes every filter treat you worse. Reddit detects reposts of removed content: the original rule fires again, and the repeat marks your account as a reposter, which escalates from there.
Duplicate detection is layered, so small edits don't reset it. Many subs enforce a cooldown before the same link can be posted again. Text similarity catches near-duplicates of your own earlier posts even after a light rewrite. And repost bots like RepostSleuthBot and Magic Eye fingerprint images with perceptual hashes, so a crop or a filter on the same picture still matches.
The order that works: diagnose first with the four symptoms at the top of this page, then fix the specific trigger. A missing flair takes ten seconds to add. A banned keyword takes one rewrite. A karma gate takes weeks of commenting, and no rewrite touches it. Only then should the post go back up, with a fresh title. If you can't tell what fired, ask the mods before resubmitting, not after the second removal.
What if a human moderator removed it?
Then you have something the automated filters never offer: someone to ask. In the second half of 2025, more than half of all removals came from human moderators, and a human removal can be appealed in modmail. The sitewide spam filter has no inbox; a mod team does.
Start with the removal reason. Mods can attach one of up to 50 predefined reasons, so check the post for a mod comment and your inbox before writing anyone. If the reason is there, you already know what to fix.
If it isn't, send one short modmail: what you posted, when, and a plain ask, which rule did it break. No accusations, no wall of text, no reposting while you wait. Mods work long queues; a two-line question gets answered, an argument gets ignored.
Arguing works in exactly one case: your post didn't break the written rule they cited. Quote the rule, point at your post, stay polite. But if the rule is no self-promotion and your post promoted your own thing, don't argue, switch lanes. A 2026 study found 61% of founder-focused subreddits ban direct self-promo outright or cap it at a 9:1 ratio, yet most keep a sanctioned lane open: weekly threads like Share Your SaaS Saturday, or a flair for showing your work. Post there, disclose that the project is yours, and the post that died on Tuesday survives on Saturday.
Quick answers
Short versions of the questions people search most. The sections above carry the detail.
Why was my post removed but still visible to me?
Because the filter that removed it is built to be silent. The sitewide spam filter and shadowbans both leave the post looking normal on your screen while hiding it from everyone else. The logged-out check is the only view you can trust.
Why does my post get removed immediately?
Instant removal means an automated rule, not a human. Either an AutoMod condition matched your post (flair, keyword, title format, account age) or the sitewide spam filter scored it as spam at submit. Check the sub's rules; missing flair is the most common trigger.
Can mods see spam-filtered posts?
Yes. Filtered posts sit in the subreddit's modqueue, and a moderator can approve one from there, which restores it. A short modmail asking the team to check the queue sometimes brings a post back, especially when the filter misfired.
Will I be told when my post is removed?
Usually not. Most automated removals send no notification, which is why they're called silent. Some AutoMod setups leave a comment naming the rule and human mods can attach a removal reason, but nothing guarantees you a message.
Check the next one before you post it
Everything above diagnoses the post that already died. The next one doesn't have to. WillItStay reads the target subreddit's live rules and posting requirements, checks your draft against its AutoMod-style gates and your account's signals, and gives you a verdict before you post. It doesn't hand back a vague score: it names the exact rule your draft would trip, then rewrites the post to pass while keeping your voice.
Paste the draft, pick the sub, read the verdict. Check your next post for free. It takes about ten seconds, and it's a lot cheaper than finding out from an empty feed.