What is the primary risk associated with aggressively promoting external links within Quora answers, even when those links provide valuable resources?
The primary risk is triggering Quora's spam detection algorithms and content moderation policies, leading to answer collapse, profile suspension, or permanent ban. Quora prioritizes providing value within its platform and disfavors content that appears solely designed to drive traffic elsewhere. Even if the links are relevant and helpful, excessive linking can be interpreted as self-promotional behavior that detracts from the user experience. Quora's algorithm may penalize answers with a high ratio of external links to original content. For example, an answer that consists mostly of links with minimal original explanation is more likely to be flagged than an answer that provides substantial value independently and includes a few relevant links for further reading.