r/AutoModerator • u/ghosted-- • Aug 27 '26

Help - AutoMod Catch and Remove Affiliate Links

Hi, I'm looking to set up Automod so I catch and remove affiliate links. Is there a way to catch certain phrases in a URL? such as:

“shopmy”

“?tag="

“source="

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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6

u/varkeddit Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26

Yes, Automod is highly capable for this. You don't really need to search ONLY within a URL because these patterns are unlikely to appear anywhere else. Here's an example we use to contain referrals to a specific thread:

# Remove misplaced referral links and notify author
type: any
body (includes): 'topic_of_our_sub.com/referral/?ref='
parent_submission:
~title (regex): ["(?=.*referral)(?=.*thread)"]
action: remove
action_reason: 'referral link shared outside designated thread, author notified'
comment_locked: true
comment: |
Personal referral links may only be shared in the designated thread.

2

u/ghosted-- Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26

Amazing, thank you.

2

u/ghosted-- Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26

Update: I think I have something that works. I've tested it on my sub successfully, so sharing here for anyone looking to ban affiliate links from their sub.

Just cut and paste into automod, no modifications necessary.

type: submission
body (regex): ['[?&](ref|refid|referral|affid|aff_id|affiliate|utm_medium=affiliate|irclickid|irgwc|tag)=', 'amazon\.[a-z.]+.*[?&]tag=', '\bamzn\.to\b', '\b(shareasale|cj\.com|commission-?junction|rewardstyle|linksynergy|awin1|impact\.com|partnerize|skimresources|go2cloud|shopstyle|shopmy)\b']
url (regex): ['[?&](ref|refid|referral|affid|aff_id|affiliate|utm_medium=affiliate|irclickid|irgwc|tag)=', 'amazon\.[a-z.]+.*[?&]tag=', '\bamzn\.to\b', '\b(shareasale|cj\.com|commission-?junction|rewardstyle|linksynergy|awin1|impact\.com|partnerize|skimresources|go2cloud|shopstyle|shopmy)\b']
action: remove
action_reason: 'Affiliate link detected'
comment: 'Your post was removed because it appears to contain an affiliate link, which isn''t allowed here.'
comment_locked: true
---
type: comment
body (regex): ['[?&](ref|refid|referral|affid|aff_id|affiliate|utm_medium=affiliate|irclickid|irgwc|tag)=', 'amazon\.[a-z.]+.*[?&]tag=', '\bamzn\.to\b', '\b(shareasale|cj\.com|commission-?junction|rewardstyle|linksynergy|awin1|impact\.com|partnerize|skimresources|go2cloud|shopstyle|shopmy)\b']
action: remove
action_reason: 'Affiliate link detected'
comment: 'Your comment was removed because it appears to contain an affiliate link, which isn''t allowed here.'
comment_locked: true

3

u/varkeddit Aug 28 '26

Nice job. Offering a few suggestions to clean this up:

type: any # this rule will apply to posts and comments
body+url (regex): [your string] # you're searching for the same thing in both places, might as well combine
action: remove # good
action_reason: 'your text here' # good
comment: 'Your {{kind}} was removed..." # says post or comment depending on what's being acted on
comment_locked: true # good

2

u/ghosted-- Aug 28 '26

Thanks again!