How I Got My Website Unblocked by Facebook (Step-by-Step)

A few months ago I bought a new (but dropped) domain name. After spending a few hours installing WordPress and writing some new posts, I thought I’d share my new website with some friends on Facebook. This is what I was greeted with!

facebook url blocked message

I was using the AddThis sharing service so thought it may have been something to do with that so my next step was to post a link directly on the sites Facebook fan page. To my dismay, I received the same message again!

Searching For a Fix

Doing a quick search on Google revealed I was not alone. There seemed to be hundreds of people on Facebook’s Help Center complaining about the same issue.

One of the biggest complaints was the complete lack of any response from Facebook (no change there then). I decided to take matter into my own hands.

Looking back at the Facebook error message, its says my links was blocked for being Spammy or Unsafe.

I headed over to Sucuri SiteCheck to see if the domain was blacklisted by anyone…

It was! McAfee SiteAdvisor had incorrectly marked my site as malicious! WTF! After a bit more searching around, its seems Facebook use SiteAdvisor’s database to cross check all domains before any URLs can be liked or shared!

If you’re blacklisted on SiteAdvisor, you’re blacklisted on Facebook.

Getting SiteAdvisor To Review Your Domain

There are several ways to get your domain or website re-reviewed by SiteAdvisor but I found the easiest way was to email support directly. That way you get a ticket number and you will get a real person response.

Send your review request to [email protected]

They say you can expect a response within 5 working days but in reality, it can take up to a month (think mine took about 29-30 days).

Anyway, after a month of waiting, people can now post and share links from my site!

12 thoughts on “How I Got My Website Unblocked by Facebook (Step-by-Step)”

  1. I have scanned my website but there is no such problems. Although facebook is reporting as spammy or unsafe now what to do??

  2. Realized this issue as well… problem is, I have since gotten McAfee to unblock the site and the domain does not appear in any blacklist, or raise flags in any malware search ANYWHERE on the internet… yet it still remains blocked from Facebook. How long did it take for Facebook to update that status?

  3. Wish I could say that I was as lucky with Facebook. Had exactly the same – caused by SiteAdvisor incorrectly blacklisting my bona fide local community website. Getting SiteAdvisor to list my site as clean only took a few days, and Sucuri lists it as completely clean – but it’s been over a year and despite repeated attempts Facebook still refuses to accept links to the domain. Any wisdom on this?

    1. Hi David,

      I feel you pain/annoyance.

      I wasn’t that lucky in the end. After getting my domain unblocked, it was blocked again a few weeks later so I let that domain expire…

      Its absolutely ridiculous there is no way to actually contact Facebook!

      Ive read that a few people managed to get their domain off the blacklist by physically writing a letter to Facebook head office…

      1. Hi Mike,

        Many thanks for letting me now that my site has been unblocked. At present everything is working normally for the first time since 2012. Was it one of the (several) Facebook unblock request links I tried that eventually worked or did you work a bit of magic on my behalf?

        David.

        1. That’s great news David.

          I did post your website briefly to my Facebook wall to test it and it worked last weekend but I was in a rush and forgot to let you know! Sorry about that. It was probably one of your unblock requests that did it.

          Anyways, glad its all working for you now. Congrats.

  4. Hi Mike,

    Thanks for the quick reply – guess I’ll just have to keep plugging away at Facebook. SiteAdvisor quickly admitted that they were registering a false positive and nothing else I’ve found, including Sucuri, which is effectively a ‘metascanner’ site, has flagged anything up. The last time I submitted an unblock request to Facebook (this evening) it said I could expect an email back from them but I’m not holding my breath!

    The site is a plain old HTML site with nothing more offensive than a bit of harmless Javascript and a Twitter feed (which I realise is known not to be ideal but doesn’t trigger any warnings anywhere that I’ve found). Site URL is bell-tower.org.uk.

    Many thanks,

    David.

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