The first-comment dropbox

The first-comment dropbox

Everyone says: "Drop your link in the first comment so the algorithm doesn't punish you."

The claim: a comment from the author within 60 seconds signals activity and saves your reach.

What's actually true: the comment doesn't save reach, but it does fix a different problem you're ignoring — people don't scroll your comments. Your link gets ~3-5% of post viewers in comment one. The mistake isn't the location, it's pretending a buried link is distribution. Tested fix: pin the link comment, then edit your last post-line to say where the link lives. Or send it to engagers in DMs the next day — that converts 4-6x better than a comment nobody opens.

It's not the algorithm hiding your link. It's that nobody reads comment one.