Account duplicates can make it harder to detect bad actors and to enforce the terms of service. They also enable abuses that undermine trust and safety: spam, phishing, scams, harassment, engagement manipulation, impersonation, fraud, and ban evasion. The good news is that there are tools to help you detect and resolve duplicate accounts quickly.

Duplicate account detection on how your system is configured, duplicate account detection may use different criteria to identify matching records. For example, some systems use unique personal attributes like email address or ORCID to identify duplicate accounts. Other systems use heuristic rules to identify duplicates. Heuristics are not foolproof, however, and a user can override them by clearing their browser cookies or creating an account with a different username or password.

In either case, the most effective way to reduce duplicates is to run a duplicate scan regularly. You can configure up to three scheduled duplicate scans in the Duplicate Management section of the Settings menu. The next scheduled duplicate scan is displayed in the Next Scan Scheduled For column. Click the Actions menu (three dots) to edit a scheduled scan or to create a new one.

Preventing Duplicate Accounts: Effective Strategies for Detection and Management

You can also use the Duplicate Manager to compare and merge matching accounts. For example, if two accounts have matching data for email field, fuzzy match or account name, you can select both accounts to merge to the main account. Alternatively, you can select an account to remove from the list of duplicates by clicking Not a Duplicate?