A shadowban is Reddit's silent penalty: your posts and comments look normal to you but are invisible to everyone else. No notification, no error message, you're shouting into the void.
How to detect it
- Log out (or use incognito) and visit your profile: if it 404s, you're shadowbanned
- Check r/ShadowBan, a bot there will analyze your account
- Sudden zero engagement on everything is the classic symptom
Common causes
Posting links too early, identical comments across subreddits, vote manipulation, and domain-level spam flags. Prevention beats cure: warm up accounts properly and vary everything.
Related terms
Paul-Marie Hamon
Founder @ Readyt
Paul-Marie is the founder of Readyt, the Reddit growth platform for SaaS. He has generated 16K€+ in pre-sales in 2 months using nothing but Reddit, and now helps founders turn Reddit threads into their #1 acquisition channel.
