S-p-a-m

[johnn]

I can't understand why many of my sites are flooded with Spam.

Take a look at the Member list:

http://www.techsupportboard.com
http://www.sitedesigntalk.com

Where did they come from????????????????????

 

[Rob]

lol.

Have you turned on that special feature to help stop bots from signing up, where it generates a number which has to be input?

 

[johnn]

I did but they did not leave the email and I end up getting errors in mail returns.

 

[jj2ii3344]

Arrr, that hurts John
I hope you will resolve the issue soon, I personally do not know why such problem arises in the first place??

 

[Rob]

Possibly add email verification to your forums, so they have to activate their accounts with a link.

 

[johnn]

Did that.

The problem is they cannot not post r do anything. Just left a mess.

 

[RJ]

It's automated script created to make accounts on PHPBB systems. If you notice, most of them start with a character that makes them show up at the top of your memberlist, and all of them have websites on their profile.

The whole purpose is, your site gets indexed by the search engines picks up their links from your memberlist and presto, instant link popularity for the dirty rotten spammers.

 

[johnn]

Is there a way to fix the problem beside switching to VB or Invisionboard?

Originally posted by -RJ-
It's automated script created to make accounts on PHPBB systems. If you notice, most of them start with a character that makes them show up at the top of your memberlist, and all of them have websites on their profile.

The whole purpose is, your site gets indexed by the search engines picks up their links from your memberlist and presto, instant link popularity for the dirty rotten spammers.

 

[RJ]

I'm sure there will be similar scripts soon for VB and invisionboard. This is why you see most signup forms around starting to use the thing it shows an image and you have to type in the number you see.

You could modify the phpbb signup process to change something there like a variable name or add a required field to try to trip up the robot. Another good idea is to limit displays on your memberlist to members that have at least one post.

 

[Anthony]

This is the first I've heard about this problem on boards, but the same thing is happening to weblogs with comments sections.