How to reduce Blog Spam

[Videx]

Can you tell me step by step?

I wish you had asked back when I did it, because at that time I found a pretty complete step by step on vb.com somewhere. A quick search turns up this. I don't think it's the one I used but it should get you going - it's really not a difficult process.

I made one mistake - don't try to put the new members into the new group you create. Just use the default "Registered Users" (group ID 2) as the spammer catcher.

[stonepilot]

I just wanted to breathe some life back into this, I'm going to create a new thread dealing with the blogs. Spammers on the blogs is one of the top 5 issues I have with vBulletin right now.

[TheLastSuperman]

Perhaps some of you simply have the wrong spam options in place atm.. a change if possible to how your protecting your site from spam may yield better results see if anything outlined here helps - http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=276547 because the simplest thing to do is stop them before they can post, if that means stopping them at registration then so be it and of course as I noticed earlier in this thread, do not allow guest/unregistered users to post comments etc.

[Dave B]

Links in user profiles can't really be counted as spam as they are not on public display like posts in the forums. There is however a potential problem as the spiders can search profiles (as guests) and if google finds a link to a dodgy (penalised) website, your site can be penalised too. I have enquired to find out if there is a way round this that's better than searching through everyones profile and there is no easy solution. Not sure if you can ban guests (and spiders) from searching profiles?

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=256383

[Wayne Luke]

Links in user profiles can't really be counted as spam as they are not on public display like posts in the forums. There is however a potential problem as the spiders can search profiles (as guests) and if google finds a link to a dodgy (penalised) website, your site can be penalised too. I have enquired to find out if there is a way round this that's better than searching through everyones profile and there is no easy solution. Not sure if you can ban guests (and spiders) from searching profiles?

Usergroup Permission. Can View Member Info. Set to No.

Usergroup Permission. Can Edit Own Profile. Set to No. Promote non-spammers to a group with this permission after a certain number of posts.

Same with blogs, don't let new users create their own or comment on others until they get XX number of posts. Then promote them into a group that can.