Acceptable Use

What will get you removed from the network

Version 1.0Published 2026-04-18

This is the list of things that get you quarantined, removed, or publicly flagged in the spam index. It's written for clarity: no ambiguous "community standards" language, no hidden tiers. What's on the list is enforced. What's not on the list is allowed.

1. What is prohibited

We group prohibited behaviour by severity. Severe violations skip the 24-hour notification step and go straight to permanent removal.

Severe — immediate permanent removal

Severe

Child sexual abuse material (CSAM)

Any material depicting child sexual abuse is reported to NCMEC, the site is removed from the network, the operator is permanently banned, and all associated data is preserved for law enforcement.

Severe

Credible threats of violence

Content threatening specific people or groups with physical harm is reported to relevant authorities and results in immediate permanent removal.

Severe

Doxxing and targeted harassment

Publishing private personal information to harass, intimidate, or enable targeted violence.

Severe

Malware / phishing distribution

Hosting, linking to, or distributing malicious software, credential-harvesting pages, or social engineering content designed to defraud users.

High — quarantine then permanent removal on confirmation

High

Cloaking and sneaky redirects

Serving different content to search engines than to users, or redirecting users to destinations they did not expect. Defined per Google Search Essentials.

High

PBN behaviour

Shared branding, duplicated voice, synchronized publish schedules, near-identical niches, or shared hosting fingerprints with other network sites. The network only works if every member is independently legitimate.

High

Scraped or plagiarised content

Publishing text, images, or data copied from third parties without license or substantial transformation. Applies to content you submit and to content generated on your behalf that you elect to keep.

High

Doorway pages

Pages created solely to rank for specific queries and funnel traffic elsewhere, with no standalone value to the reader.

High

Hidden text, keyword stuffing

Content manipulation techniques designed to deceive search engines. Includes invisible text, white-on-white keyword lists, and over-optimised anchor-text clusters.

High

Link schemes

Participation in link exchanges, paid-link networks, or automated linking programs outside the Networkr cross-link system. Networkr cross-links are editorial and scored; external link schemes are not.

High

Thin-content factories

Sites where the majority of content is sub-800-word stubs, auto-generated listicles with no research, or scraped aggregations presented as original.

High

Deceptive monetisation

Fake affiliate disclosures, undisclosed sponsorship, misleading product claims, fraudulent reviews, or patterns consistent with affiliate spam farms.

Standard — quarantine with full review and appeal

Standard

Niche overlap with existing network site

When a new site's niche overlaps >70% with an existing network site, admission is paused until the operator differentiates. Not punitive — it protects everyone's cross-linking value.

Standard

Drift into prohibited categories

An admitted site that gradually starts publishing content inconsistent with its original audit — for example, a cooking blog pivoting to crypto. Triggers re-audit, not immediate removal.

Standard

Persistent quality-gate failures

A site where more than 30% of pipeline runs fail pre-publish gates over a 30-day window indicates a configuration or content-strategy problem. Pipeline pauses pending review.

Standard

Abuse of the appeals process

Frivolous or bad-faith appeals filed repeatedly to exhaust reviewer time. Three bad-faith appeals in 90 days triggers manual review of all future appeals from the operator.

2. Enforcement timeline

For standard and high-severity violations, this is the timeline. Severe violations skip directly to permanent removal.

T+0 → T+1h
Quarantine

Cross-linking to and from the site is disabled. Existing articles stay readable. The site is frozen, not deleted.

T+24h
Notification + evidence

The network admin receives an email containing: the rule triggered, the specific evidence (URLs, signal flags, evidence hashes), and a case number for appeal.

T+48h
Human review + appeal window

Appeals filed at /appeal are processed by a human reviewer. Reviewer decisions are published with case number and reasoning. If you don't appeal within 48h the case advances automatically.

On confirmed abuse
Permanent removal + public spam index

Site removed from network. Public entry added to /spam-index with reason codes and evidence hashes. The decision is linkable, auditable, and — if new information emerges — reversible.

3. How to appeal

Every enforcement action comes with a case number. To appeal:

  1. Visit /appeal or email appeals@networkr.dev with the case number in the subject line.
  2. Describe why the flag is wrong. Include screenshots, log references, or counter-evidence where relevant.
  3. A human reviewer (not the system that flagged you) evaluates the case within 48 hours of receipt.
  4. The reviewer's decision, reasoning, and any adjustments to our detection rules are published publicly in the transparency report with the case number.

Appeals do not automatically unfreeze the site — that depends on the reviewer's finding. Successful appeals restore full access and remove any public spam-index entry within 2 hours.

4. Our commitments back to you

5. Reporting another site

If you believe a Networkr member site is violating this policy:

  1. Email abuse@networkr.dev with the URL and the specific policy clause you believe is violated.
  2. Include evidence — URLs, screenshots, archive.org captures, or reproduction steps.
  3. We acknowledge receipt within 24 hours. Reports with clear evidence trigger a detection pass within 48 hours.
  4. Reports drive detection, not decisions. The same signal-based detection rules apply — we don't quarantine on your say-so, but a credible report often surfaces a signal our crawler missed.

For copyright (DMCA) concerns, email legal@networkr.dev with the full DMCA notice components required by 17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3).

6. Repeat infringers

Operators whose sites are removed for confirmed abuse are permanently blocked from registering new sites under the same ownership. Detection uses multiple signals (email, payment instrument, infrastructure fingerprint) and — consistent with §4 above — errs toward false-negatives. An operator who believes they were wrongly blocked can appeal under the same process in §3.

7. Changes

Material changes are announced by email to active tenants 14 days before taking effect. Prior versions archived at /acceptable-use/history.

8. Contact

Appeals: appeals@networkr.dev. Abuse reports: abuse@networkr.dev. Legal: legal@networkr.dev.

Acceptable Use Policy v1.0 · Published 2026-04-18 · See history for prior versions.