Facebook, this site is safe to share. I promise. I have done everything I can to demonstrate my site’s safety. Please unblock me.
I can’t easily share links to this blog on Facebook. It’s been an annoyance for years now, and I haven’t been able to find a solution. Honestly, I haven’t even been able to find a reason for why it happens; I can’t even get that far. No reason is given.
Here’s what happens when I try to share a link, any link, to this domain on Facebook: if I try to post, Facebook makes me solve a captcha, telling me that it’s a “Security Check” and that this site “may be unsafe” or violate community guidelines or something. Facebook discourages me from posting it at all. Why? Who knows! The links to “Why am I seeing this?” expands out to say:
“This is a standard security test that we use to make sure accounts are authentic.”
It’s especially annoying because I have a page set up for the blog on Facebook, to which posts are auto-shared. Those go through fine, but I get the captcha request even when I try to re-share those Facebook posts! What’s going on?
To pour salt in the wound, Facebook keeps suggesting I add a website to my Page, but when I do:
Security! Protection! Authenticity! These are all alarming thoughts. Facebook never gives me anything specific, anything actionable, I can do to clear my site’s good name, however.
This domain has been in use since at least 2004. I have maintained control of it that entire time. It was and is, registered from Gandi.net, a reputable registrar.
Mail through this account is protected by DKIM, although, to be fair, it may be time for me to register new keys and rotate them.
SSL now protects traffic to and from this site.
There are no unsafe plugins or apps hosted on this domain.
The host (as of a weekend ago), SiteGround, is a recommended host from WordPress.
The domain does not appear on any blacklists that are searchable by MXToolbox.com; it is a safe site according to Google Safe Search.
I’ve verified the domain through Facebook’s Business tools, which has not removed the requirement to solve a captcha to post a link here.
One online suggestion I’ve seen for others with this same problem has been to look at the output of the Facebook Debugger. The only error I get there is about whether or not I have a valid Facebook App ID, but adding one to my site does not remove the captcha requirement.
I’m at my wit’s end trying to prove to Facebook this is a Safe Site. I do get a handful of clicks on my site from Facebook, which, to be honest, is the majority of traffic to it (for now), but would I get more if I wasn’t deemed “unsafe?” How much more?
If anyone out there has any suggestions for what I can do to solve this problem with Facebook, beyond abandoning Facebook as a platform… please feel free to let me know.