I Got Banned From Quora - 3 Lessons Learned
Do you know what is Quora?
It's a website where people can ask ANY questions and then people will provide answers. I and many other Internet marketers have used it for getting traffic.
Today I started my day by reading an email from Quora saying that I got banned from Quora.
I've got an account on Quora with around 550 answers and it was consistently driving traffic to my website and YouTube channel.
Therefore, I've appealed to Quora and I really hope to get my account restored.
I've seen on YouTube and read articles that also many other Quora accounts have been banned over the years. Even accounts from famous Internet marketers such as Neil Patel have been banned.
The reason for bans is usually adding too many links but sometimes the reason is unknown.
3 Lessons I Learned From Getting Banned on Quora
"Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn", says John Maxwell. Here are 3 things I've learned from getting banned on Quora.
1. Analyze What's Giving You The Best Results and Focus on That
Even though I was getting some consistent traffic from Quora, I think it wasn't enough for the work that I put in.
Usually, I only spent 5-10 minutes per each answer which is not much but I provided around 550 answers in total which is A LOT.
If I would have used the same time on building my YouTube channel, my website or email list, I believe that I would have got better returns on my invested time.
I still kept on answering on Quora because it drove me some traffic and it was very easy-to-do...
2. Don't Rely Too Much on Unstable Social Media Channels
As I said you above, I had heard that many Quora accounts had been banned. It should have been a sign for me that I shouldn't put much effort into that.
Now the loss wasn't still so huge for me because Quora wasn't my main traffic channel. But imagine if Quora would have been my primary channel for driving traffic. Whole traffic is wiped out and I would need to start from 0.
Many FB marketers have said that their FB ads accounts have been banned. Actually, every experienced FB marketer that I have listened have said that some of their FB ads account have been banned.
So, you always need to keep these things in mind when you start building your traffic and not rely too much on unstable channels. Minimize the risks because the worst may happen.
The safest way to build your online business is to build your email list and your website because nobody can take those assets away.
3. If You Get Warnings From Quora Moderation, Stop Answering New Questions
When I got warnings from Quora Moderation, I stopped answering new questions to make sure that my current answers would have remained there at least.
However, after a while I couldn't resist the temptation to start answering again.
It was fun, easy and I was still getting some traffic from there, right?
Well, not a good idea. I wasn't 100% sure why some answers were deleted and why some answers weren't.
So, the safest way for me to do would have been just to stop answering new questions and get the traffic that my previous answers were giving me.
If my appeal to Quora moderation goes through and I get my account restored, I will not answer new questions anymore. It's way too risky.
Should You Put All Your Eggs in One Basket When Driving Traffic?
I'd like to hear your thoughts and comments to this question below this article.
Here are few thoughts from myself:
You have many options when driving traffic to your website:
- Google SEO
- YouTube
- Quora
- Paid advertising on all those channels
Some people say that you should just focus on one traffic channel, and master it instead of trying 10 things at the same time.
I agree with that philosophy.
However, what if that 1 channel that you've done gets turned down and banned?
What if you would have a YouTube channel with 1 Million subs and YouTube bans your channel for some reason? This has happened for several people in the past.
What if you focus solely on Google SEO and your traffic drops +50%? This has happened to numerous people over the years. ALSO, to sites that focus on White Hat SEO.
What if you focus on Facebook Ads and your account gets banned for an unknown reason? This is extremely common.
One of the richest men of all time, Andrew Carnegie said, "Put all good eggs in one basket and then watch that basket."
I also believe in specializing in 1 or a few things instead of doing 10 things. However, sometimes that strategy may be risky.
My Own Conclusion - Focus On Your Email List
Whatever above-mentioned channel you are using for driving traffic, they can all be banned and shut down. Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc. They are all some other companies and you are relying on them.
However, when you build your email list, you 100% own the traffic.
When you have your list, nobody or nothing can take it away.
In addition, an email list is also "warm" and "hot" traffic that usually drives the most sales and conversions.
There you have several touch points with your audience. Usually people don't buy from you after seeing you just once. Some experts say that you need to show on average 7 times before someone wants to buy from you.
I can confirm this from my own experience.
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What are your thoughts on this subject?
Should we specialize on just 1 traffic channel or master several different ones?
What is the best way to drive traffic?
Let us know in the comments and again smash that "Like This" button if you've found this interesting! :)
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Looking forward to hearing from you!
-Roope "Just got banned from Quora" Kiuttu
PS. I will update here if I get my account restored. I've heard that some people (including that Neil Patel) have got their accounts restored afterwards. But some people didn't...
PPS. I also uploaded a video to my YouTube channel with the same title if you want to check it out.. :)
Recent Comments
153
Oops!! Sorry to hear that. And also, wow... I did not know that Quora banned users like you and Neil Patel. I've bookmarked some of Neil's answers on Quora because they are so brilliant. Thanks for sharing your experience and your tips. I'm glad I haven't focused on Quora. LinkedIn is by far my favourite channel and it seems to be a "safe" place to do business. I'm still learning the rules there though.
Yeah. In one YouTube video Neil Patel explained that he got banned, then restored the account then banned again, then restored, etc. :D
I've also heard from someone that Quora sometimes "favors" big players so rules for them may not be so strict as for regular guys.
Thanks for the info! Do you know where I can find tutorials on the following questions?
How do you create an email list on your site?
What content do you offer in a regular email?
This was just a quick read so I haven't had time to browse WA yet.
Jay has a series of email marketing. Click "Live Events" and search for "email" or "email marketing" and you'll find them.
here's for example: Email Marketing 2018: 1st Steps to List Building
Awe, that sucks, Roope :-(
I never got into Quora, just as well.
I'm definitely of the DON'T put all your eggs in one basket brigade, especially as you have no control over the big companies. They have many seemingly-arbitrary rules which it's easy to fall foul of without realising.
Far better hedge you bets, I think.
Thanks for the tips and sharing your experience.
Hope you get restored soon.
Ian
Thanks for sharing Ian! Good points!
I think putting all eggs into one basket can be a good idea when there's more control over that "basket". For example, focusing on 1 business instead of 3 businesses can be a good idea because then there's control.
But with these social media channels there's not full control over them as they may suddenly ban you anytime.
Yes, totally agree.
We shouldn't rely totally on anything we don't have control over.
Social Media is fine s long as you don't depend on it :-)
Ian
I try to specialize on two channels and having 2 on a low pace on the site. So I can put more time in other if I see there more happening.
Have a great day
Tommy
Great post. We use Quora but only when we get an email asking for an answer to a question. We seem to get some traffic and referrals from it but none of them ever go Premium!
We quite often don’t put a link in the answer but tell them about the link in our profile.
Apparently it is important to ensure that any links in your answers have the same url prefixes the one in your profile. So for example if your profile url was youtdomain.com use Pretty Links to make urls like yourdomain.com/offer
Yes, I did it but that doesn't seem to help. I didn't use any affiliate links because I think it's against their rules.
I thought that 1 link per answer would be okay for them but still received a ban.
If I'd start answering again on Quora, I'd be "afraid" to add any links for answers unless the answers would be long.
Unlucky mate. I'll keep in mind that an email list is bullet proof and will eventually attempt to collect emails...
I used quora once, had my 1000 word answer taken down with no reasons given... I started doing research and looking at how many answers to questions that quora actually squashed and realized this wasn't worth my time. So many people had posted that their answers were taken down and had no idea why, when 20 of them b4 then with exactly the same amount of links and words were accepted. So figured my time would be better off somewhere else. Good luck to you!
Yeah, I've got some similar experience.
I remember one evening in March 2018 I used 2-3 hours just writing answers on Quora.
Next morning I woke up and all those answers had been deleted.
I should have learned the lesson back then! :D
Hi Roope,
I use Quora just like you and have also wondered how much risk to take there. It is a very easy way to get a bit of traffic to my site and if I could continue to answer questions there it seemed it could grow into something good.
I was nervous when I heard that we are not supposed to have links selling anything (even if it is to our own webpage) and wondered if I should just give up on Quora.
I waited a while and like you I started answering a few questions again. I did not answer as many though. So far I have not been banned.
I think your suggestion to just stop and let the existing questions and answers drive some traffic to our sites without getting banned is probably smart. Maybe I will keep adding a few answers as I add new posts (so I have different topics to attract visitors to my sites as I review different products). I think that is an acceptable risk since it seems the longer I stay away from Quora the less traffic I get, so eventually I won't get much traffic from it anyway so getting banned is less of a risk if there is less and less to lose.
I agree that we should not put our eggs in one basket! I suffered a slowdown in traffic from Google this summer during the last update and wondered the same thing. Am I focusing too much on Google traffic? I started focusing on Bing a bit more and some other avenues again.
Great things to ponder here!
Thanks,
Jessica
I think it depends on how much traffic you get from Quora. If you feel that you get a good amount of traffic compared to your invested time, then it's great.
However, after analyzing it afterwards, I notice that I should have spent that time creating YouTube videos, optimizing high traffic pages on my website or writing better emails to my email list. Those things would have given better returns on my invested time.
I thought that Quora could be worth it if the answers would still keep on driving traffic there for let's say +5 years to come but that didn't happen. I didn't realize that the risk of getting banned was so big. If I'd go back in time, I wouldn't probably start on Quora.
I enjoyed it because it's easy and fun way to drive traffic but I think the returns weren't good enough.
I understand. In your situation I am sure you can do much better with YouTube etc. That makes sense to me!
Yep. I just hope that YT channel would never be shutdown because that would be very bad. But I think with YouTube, those instances are still quite rare when channels have been shutdown.
I've seen some examples that huge channels have been shut down. Also once I was unable access my account for 1-2 weeks but then got it back. I still don't know what was the reason for that. I guess it may be that I liked my own videos with 2 or 3 other accounts also :D
But YouTube didn't inform me in any way. They just denied my access and then gave it back maybe 2 weeks later.
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Hi,
I am sorry you got banned. Quora is very funny like that. I have been warned as well. It is a pain in the butt. They banned Neil Patel three times and let him back.
They will let you back in for sure. I get what you mean the moderators aren't really clear I don't think. Use a link shortener as well that may help for next time.
Debs. :)
Thanks for the encouragement Debs, I really hope they get me back.
Do you mean some Bit.ly or something like that with a link shortener?
I've just linked to articles on my site.
Hi,
I use Pretty links plugin on my site they haven't taken that down yet since using the plugin.
The other answers I gave with normal links they removed.
Hope that helps it's worth a try.
I'll let you know if they ban that too.
Debs :)
Really? :O that's surprising.
So, you create a pretty link to a post of your website?
Hi,
Yes, I do it like that. Then I share the custom, Pretty Link to Quora.
Hope it helps when you get back in. Just try and contact them again. They should allow you to access again.
Keep me updated what happens.
Debs :)