Forum Spam

[stender]

I've run a forum in the past but soon became fed up with the constant fight against spammers. I'm now considering starting one again but wondering if theres much help in the fight against spam?
It's only going to be a small niche forum so was thinking of just using phpbb. Any advice? recommendations? I'll want to disallow posting links for the above reason.

 

[Ashton]

Hmm, I have ran forums with thousands of users on both phpbb and vbull without much spam.

Users love to moderate anyway, so hire a few moderators, ensure the 'registration' has an antispam and all links are no-follow.

 

[fish]

can you monetise forums to make them worthwhile running or is it much a labour of love?

if it's needed to spend hours a week keeping on top of spam it seems like a lot of hassle

 

[Admin]

You need this stopforumspam.com

 

[stender]

Thanks. This ones going to be me doing my bit for the local community so not looking to monetise.

 

[rob]

I run a forum that has about 500 posts a day and only gets one spam post every month or two. Thats mainly due to moderating new users every week and adding to the registration form.

In terms of links, there are mods and setups to use - and it is becoming more needed if you are allowing dofollow otherwise you might end up like acorn on 'seo lists' like:

http://www.geekblogger.org/2010/01/list-of-dofollow-forums.html
http://www.rickspot.com/2009/06/80-do-follow-forums-that-will-help-you.html
http://www.bloggersbase.com/internet/list-of-do-follow-forums/
http://hubpages.com/hub/Dofollowforum
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketi...-forums-with-dofollow-signatures-3255029.html
http://www.qondio.com/a-current-list-of-dofollow-forums-by-category
http://sites.google.com/site/internetmarketingseoservices/do-follow-forums-list.php
http://trafficsecret.net/having-free-traffic-from-100-do-follow-forums.html
http://www.techknowl.com/dofollow-forums-allowing-signature-link.html

etc etc

 

[accelerator]

On digitalpoint forums I think they have a CAPTCHA test for every forum, or at least of the For Sale section.

Rgds

 

[rob]

Lots of spammers are now human, so stuff like that does not often work.

Asking a relevant question on registration can help ie. what colour shirt do we play in? for a football forum etc.

The main thrust of spam at the moment is linkbuild, so remove that incentive and half your job is done.

 

[GreyWing]

Depending on who your forum is aimed at, you can tailor a question. We have a UK based question on our forum and to this date we haven't had one of these spam posts.

All with one question, we have 10,000 members and 500 posts a day, so is busy.

As Rob says many of them are human now, mostly Indians or Asians on 20p an hour. Which means captchas struggle, but UK questions won't, they'll just quickly move onto the next forum rather than googling the question.

 

[stender]

Is adding the question an option with phpbb
How do users know that links are no follow
wont they add them anyway

sorry my question mark key is knackered and the last letter of the alphabet! time to buy a new laptop.

 

[Ashton]

Is adding the question an option with phpbb
How do users know that links are no follow
wont they add them anyway

sorry my question mark key is knackered and the last letter of the alphabet! time to buy a new laptop.

They use scripts to check if the site is no follow before they send it to there human spammer

As for phpbb, http://www.phpbb.com/about/features/ scroll to antispam

 

[stender]

Ok, got my forum setup using phpbb3. Question now is how best to get the thing off the ground? Is it a case of creating a dozen alter ego's and talk to myself or are there easier ways?

I am planning on getting the local press to do a feature but really need some content first. it's the old chicken and egg.

 

[aZooZa]

Ok, got my forum setup using phpbb3. Question now is how best to get the thing off the ground? Is it a case of creating a dozen alter ego's and talk to myself or are there easier ways?

I am planning on getting the local press to do a feature but really need some content first. it's the old chicken and egg.

Alter egos will work and you can use them rotationally for replying to others' posts.