Is it OK to recommend our own services in a comment?

Question

A question was closed for being off-topic, I was the first to vote to close.

I run a web hosting business and offer the service they are looking for. Is it OK to suggest that in a comment with or without disclosure?

Answer 1

Our official documentation states:

Avoid overt self-promotion.

The community tends to vote down overt self-promotion and flag it as spam. Post good, relevant answers, and if some (but not all) happen to be about your product or website, that’s okay. However, you must disclose your affiliation in your answers.

If a large percentage of your posts include a mention of your product or website, you're probably here for the wrong reasons. Our advertising rates are quite reasonable; contact our ad sales team for details. We also offer free community promotion ads for open source projects and non-profit organizations.

Commenting with self-promotion rather than including self-promotion in answers doesn't change much.

It is not OK to offer a link to your service without disclosing that you are associated with it.

It could be allowable to promote your hosting business in a comment provided that:

• It is helpful in the context: The user is looking for hosting, especially if it is a type of hosting in which your business specializes.
• It doesn't happen often. Self-promotion should be a small part of your contribution to our site.

It would be a lot less likely to get flagged as spam if you also had something else useful to say or were will willing to mention some of your competitors as alternatives.

I occasionally link to my own stuff. I sometimes recommend my free open source contact form or link to my blog posts that have in depth explanations of some concepts. However, I don't link to my commercial business interests here because I don't want to give the appearance of spamming, especially given my position as a moderator.

In summary: occasional, disclosed, self-promotion is frowned upon, but not completely against the rules. For a regular contributor such as yourself, a very-occasional self-promotional comment is unlikely to brand you as a spammer. However, I would prefer that you refrain from such overt self-promotion.