[Steemhunt] How to get your hunt verified on Steemhunt

Hi, @jayplayco here.

As a moderator at Steemhunt, I am seeing the potential of Steemhunt every single day, and I love to share my experience and help people to increase the understanding of the Steemhunt system.

To all readers who are new to Steemhunt, Steemhunt is a recently launched service build on Steem to enable Hunters to hunt new and cool products and get rewarded based on their rankings on a daily base. If you are new to Steemhunt, you should try first this post. LINK

In this post, we are going to have a more in-depth look into writing an hunt and what the main reasons are that my posts get rejected.

This post is for intermediate Steemhunt users who have been hunting already and want to improve their skills for hunter comments and avoid getting de-listed. Please be aware that it is a long post, as we are handling almost the complete posting guideline from Steemhunt.

0. Repository

https://github.com/Steemhunt/api

1. Prepare your post to get verified

Source: Marten Newhall Source Font : pixelbuddha.net

We are going into the posting guideline, as this is the primary guide the moderators are following to decide if a hunt is verified or de-listed.
We will not follow the numbers of the guideline but the organic way a hunter would hunt a product.

2. Posting Guideline 1 - Hunt a product, not a business

Look for a product and not a business. It means it is ok to look for an iPhone and hunt it, but not when you hunt Apple as it is. For offline products usually this line is not that difficult to find, but for web services, as a business, it can get a bit more complicated.

Hunted Example - Stickermule

Source: stickermule.com

This is a web service offering customized stickers. So the hunter thought that he could hunt this product because it is a web service. But if you go deeper into this, you can see that the personalized sticker itself is the product, and the Stickermule is a business selling their service. So this is categorized as business and had been de-listed.

3. Posting Guideline 2 - Types of Products to Post

Steemhunt covers unique IT or hardware products but includes the following :

Web services

Mobile apps

API, IT solutions, bots, open sources or other types of software

Tech gadgets, hardware, IoT/connected/wearable devices

Games

Innovative Engineering/Design Products

We had the part of web services already above, so let`s skip this here.
Mobile Apps are Apps for Android or iOS. Almost all kind of Apps are allowed, but you have to remember that Steemhunt is here also about unique, cool and new products. As an example, if you post the next generic file manager (which is already included in every Android or iOS device), then you risk getting de-listed.
Software is also a nice category to hunt products. IT solutions or introducing innovative bots or open source projects are always nice to have. You should take care that the software is not too old or also not too generic (too well known) like as example Skype, Microsoft Office, etc.
Most hunted category is the gadgets, hardware, and devices. Make sure that your product has somehow a connection with tech. Also, too generic hardware products like a LED Flash without any specialty or like a mug are getting rejected. (Yes, we get a mug hunted :) )
Games: this category has an own posting guideline.

Games
There are countless games worldwide, and many of them have narrow target customers. If we accept all new games in Steemhunt, our ranking board may be dominated by games. So, Steemhunt will only accept games that are:

downloadable/purchasable from major app stores or console game markets

run on their website

a game platform itself, rather than a single game inside the platform.
These specific types of games will not be acceptable:

A single arcade game

A single flash / HTML game

A generic gambling game
For “new” games we will consider them based on the original title’s release date. No other release dates based on additions of new platforms or newly released patches will be considered.

The critical part here is: take care that your hunted game is not too old. Don’ hunt single arcade games or flash based games. If from a platform it should be rather a significant market like Google Playstore, Apples Appstore or Steam. App stores don’t show the released date but the latest update date. Moderators are looking into the comments in the Appstore or google the game for press releases to check the release date. You can do the same to avoid unnecessary de-lists.

4.Posting Guideline 6&7 - Post “New” and “cool” products

Source : Collin Armstrong
This may be the most subjective but on other hands the most important part of Steemhunt. Please post new and cool products as Steemhunt is a daily ranking board of posted products. It is going to be essential to post a real “cool” product to get the attention of other hunters and after that their upvotes. So if you consider hunting a product, please think about the fact if you would “invest” your upvote into this hunt, because you think it is cool.

5.Posting Guideline 5 -Plagiarism and Copyrights

Source: Radu Marcusu

This part is essential and will save you a lot of time. DON`T copy and paste at all. The moderators at Steemhunt are using expensive paid tools to check if your text has been plagiarized and also are checking manually different sources if there are text blocks just changed a little bit. An example, I am currently using Grammarly Pro, Quetext.com and smallseotools.com to check every single text if there is any part plagiarized. The tools are handy if you use them all together and they find almost every unique context which is just copied or just changed a little bit. Additionally checking different sources (like googling the main keywords and looking into the pages) are giving a high accuracy to find any copied text. The last mile is that we also get reports from the community if there is a text the moderators may miss.

If your text is plagiarized in the high percentage, you will get delisted directly, if there are only a few sentences copied the moderators will ask to edit it. But you should not be sure that the moderators will ask for an edit, as Steemhunt is not tolerating any plagiarism at all.

Make sure that if you put any material from the main page directly into your hunt to use the proper quotation marks. Use the “>” to mark it and also mention the final source at the end of your quotation to make sure that no moderator is going to de-list your hunt because of plagiarism.

This is not only valid for text passages but also for features. Don't use screenshots for functions and if you are pasting the elements into your hunt, mention the source and use the proper quotation marks.

6.Posting Guideline 8,9,10 -Quality, Duplicate, Main products

From the view of a moderator, one of the first tasks is to check if your product is duplicated. The search engine from Steemhunt is in the current moment not as sophisticated as we would like to have it, so you have to do a different kind of test to be sure that your product is not duplicated.

If you search for the product make sure you input the whole product name.
If you input the product link and the systems show that it has already been hunted, don't try to manipulate it with a different deep link or URL shortener. Your moderator will find it and de-list your product directly.

Quality is also an aspect which is essential, as it is not only influencing the verifying process of the moderators but also the upvoting of each hunter of your hunt.

As a hunter, you need to post a cool product with well-structured comments and screenshots so that the users can see the benefit of the product quickly without needing to check the product's website. Your post will be hidden if you:

use non-related words/descriptions about the product.

attach non-related screenshot images or videos.

attach low-quality product images.

share any scams or highly suspicious cryptocurrency/fin-tech products.

share porn or anything under the nsfw category.

share illegal products.

share an ICO which currently has no live product.

share a product that is no longer available (except for pre-order stage).

Most de-lists are happening when a product is not anymore available, or the screenshots are not high resolution. Additionally, if posting ICO`s the moderators will have an in-depth look into the currency to see if the product has an actual product and is not a scam.

There is no strict rule on how many words your hunt should have, but please remember the main rule. Your hunter`s comment should have all relevant information about the product so that nobody needs to visit the brand page to get additional information. Also, it should have your voice about the product why you think this product is cool and why you have hunted it. This part is more for your own sake, as it will help to increase your upvote chance from other hunters.

The last part here is to post only main products. This means you can hunt an iPad from Apple but not a Smart Cover from Apple, as this is just an accessory for the iPad. On the other hand, you can hunt a Smart Cover from Belkin, as this is their primary product to sell.

7.Details on PG 3, 4 - English only and product link

Source: Slava Borman

Steemhunt is a global community, so you have to post your hunts in English. In the current moment, the moderators are still accepting hunts when the first explanation is in English and the second explanation translated into another language. But as mentioned, the first explanation still needs to be in English.

Another part you have to take care for details is the product link.

Product Link
We only accept these four product links:

Official product website

Major app store link (AppStore, PlayStore, etc.)

Crowdfunding sites (Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc.)

Github, Bitbucket repositories for open source projects

So this means no e-commerce site, no blog articles or affiliate links, etc. Posting the wrong product link ends in a direct de-list, so please make sure that you find the brand page of your hunt in English and link it correctly.

One additional advice for Appstore links is, if the app is available for both iOS and Android, make sure that you find the primary link for the App where both versions are offered, as otherwise your hunt could get de-listed. Moderators usually look first if there is an alternative version available and then looking into the details if there is a so-called “brand page” available where both versions are offered.

8.Finishing your hunt.

After following the posting guideline correctly, you should be ready for posting it.

Make sure that the posting link is a correct brand page.
Name of product: Keep it short. (Make sure nothing gets cut-off)
Use the short description to explain your product in detail (Make sure nothing gets cut-off)
Images: use only high-res images, as otherwise your post is getting de-listed because of them.
Hunter's comment: I guess you are now ready to make a great hunter`s comment :)

9. After the hunt.

After a moderator has reviewed your hunt, you will find a message from one of them. You can identify the moderator on Steemhunt with the Icon beside their nickname, as it is going to show the wording “MOD” in red on it.

10.Closing

You have done a great job if you have read the post to the end. When following these points, you will be able to minimize the risk to get rejected due to the posting guideline. As the moderators are also human, you have also always the chance to appeal directly to the moderator who reviewed your hunt in the Discord channel from Steemhunt. Just post your Steemhunt link and what your thoughts are about the review, or if you have edited it, what you have edited.

Wish you hunters happy hunting~!

11. Github Account

https://github.com/zionopia

Thanks for reading!