How to increase your chances of having your forum approved?
I often get asked why someone's forum was rejected.
First of all, I need to clarify that I’m not an internal member of the Product Hunt team, so I do not influence these decisions.
I’ve been active on the platform for a long time; people know me here, I contribute every day, and I try to foster discussion. That makes it easier for me compared to someone who has only been on the platform for the first couple of weeks.
I’ve decided to share 10 tips that might help.
Spend a good amount of active time on the platform. Don’t publish your forum immediately. Get familiar with how the platform works.
First, support other product launches – actively and meaningfully comment on other people’s forums.
Have a complete profile, including your social media links, which ideally should also be active.
Try to verify your profile (Profile picture → Settings → Verification).
Interact with posts from the internal team as well.
Launching your own product is a step closer to building credibility (at the very least, you gain the status of maker and hunter for your own product).
When you post your forum, place it under the correct forum category (e.g., if it’s about Amazon, post it under the Amazon forum).
Make sure your discussion does not violate community rules.
Make sure your forum follows the Forum Guidelines.
If your forum isn’t approved, don’t panic. Politely ask Product Hunt support what you could do better next time so that your post can meaningfully contribute to the platform and help it grow.
I hope that these few points will help you in the future.
If anyone has experience turning a rejected post into an approved one, what helped you? What changes did you make to get it accepted?
Replies
I’ll jump in here too, Nika!
Over the last three months, I haven’t published much, but before that, I posted consistently for 60 days.
Here are my tips:
Deliver value. Try to make your post feel like you’re writing an article for a reputable website. It can be just 400–500 words, but make sure it’s high quality.
Format properly. Make your post well-structured. Use bold text, numbering, bullet points. Put in a little effort so it looks clean and easy to read.
Don’t post AI slop. Use AI (whether it’s through OpenAI’s voice mode, @Wispr Flow , or ChatGPT/Claude for generating a draft), but make sure to polish it into a real post. You don’t have to spend two hours writing, but take 20 seconds to make it look natural.
Be unique. The more original and valuable your post is, the higher the chance it’ll get approved. I see quite a lot of AI-generated junk, and even if it gets approved, it adds no real value. I personally skip those.
Post in the right section. For me, product-specific forum sections are the perfect place to share the latest updates or news about a product.
Connect with other creators on the platform. Study them. There’s a lot to learn from these people.
And now, the opposite. My posts that were rejected:
Slightly controversial topics. For example, I once posted about massive bot attacks on Product Hunt and how to handle them. I didn’t mean to paint the platform in a bad light, but the topic still got rejected.
Posts that look like hidden or explicit promotion. Even if it’s not a direct ad. If it feels like you’re promoting something, it’s a bad idea. Your post will be rejected immediately.
@byalexai This is solid advice, especially the emphasis on polishing AI-assisted drafts into something genuinely useful. The difference between “AI-generated” and “AI-assisted but thoughtful” is very noticeable.
Also agree on formatting and intent — when a post is clearly written to help, not promote, it shows. Thanks for sharing the rejected examples too, that context is really valuable.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@byalexai I am happy you also mentioned the two things that didn't go well. Maybe the examples that were rejected are better for help because you can spot the pattern that has a high chance to devalue your effort :) Thank you for your contribution. It is helpful as usual! :)
I had a post got rejected because it was in the wrong forum. I posted the same into the right forum topic and it was accepted. It was a naive mistake but I only recently started posting on PH.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@avhijit_nair But you learnt something new at least :)
@busmark_w_nika Definitely! That's the best part🙌
minimalist phone: creating folders
@avhijit_nair Looking forward for the new learnings as well :D
This is a helpful breakdown.
A lot of this really comes down to earning context and trust before posting, not just following rules.
Meaningful participation, a complete profile, and understanding how discussions work on the platform seem to matter more than people expect. Forums feel much better when they come from contributors, not drive-by posts.
Curious to hear what small changes made the biggest difference for others after a rejection.