[Forum] Aggressively spammed: help on how to stem, questions and answers

[alessio]

Hello all, i have search about spam threads but nothing more useful or more (if it is possible) advanced have come out.
The problem is, that also with any available human verification manager feature activated on vBulletin administration, i found any day, more or less 500 or 600 new spam threads to be MODERATED on any activated forum. The image verification fail and is very easily bypassed by spammers, and as i can see is very easily to be bypassed also reCAPTCHA. With any of this two antispam measures activated, thousand of new spam threads are posted any day and by the way, and it is impossible to stem it. The only one way to relatively stem spam is the Question and Answer Verification option, that any way is also bypassed by spammers, but in this case, from 3000, 4000 spam threads posted in one day (using reCAPTCHA and Image verification), spam threads decrease until 500, 600 every day.
The worse is that any day, almost one or two posts are validated by the system, and this posts are not marked as MODERATED, this spam threads are visible to all.

Any help and suggestion is really (but really) welcome, thank you.

[Fergal]

[GlowHost] Spam-O-Matic - Spam Firewall stops forum spam, works pretty well on my forum, it might help you too.

[beishe8]

The only one way to relatively stem spam is the Question and Answer Verification option, that any way is also bypassed by spammers, but in this case, from 3000, 4000 spam threads posted in one day (using reCAPTCHA and Image verification), spam threads decrease until 500, 600 every day.

As soon as you see that spam is on the increase change your questions and answers.

[Mark.B]

The two answers above are the best solutions.

Change your questions and answers and make sure they aren't simple ones or mathematical equations, as these are easily bypassed. Make the questions relevant to your site's niche but not simple and easy to guess.

Install the Spam-O-Matic addon mentioned above. Although we can't officially support modifications, loads of sites are using this addon, me included, and it will cut your spam dramatically. My advice when using it is not to have username checking enabled as this can easily block genuine accounts.

[whitetailworld]

i have an outdoor related website. i only expect traffic from USA and Canada. I have blocked all traffic outside of these 2 countries. very, very rarely does someone get in outside of those 2. most of the work was done in the .htaccess file. i must say though there are still a few everyday that register with an ip address from the USA. if anyone is interested in what i did send me a pm or email <REMOVED>

[Mark.B]

i have an outdoor related website. i only expect traffic from USA and Canada. I have blocked all traffic outside of these 2 countries. very, very rarely does someone get in outside of those 2. most of the work was done in the .htaccess file. i must say though there are still a few everyday that register with an ip address from the USA. if anyone is interested in what i did send me a pm or email

That is one way but unless a site is very localised I would not recommend that method.

[beishe8]

i have an outdoor related website. i only expect traffic from USA and Canada.

I receive quite a few spam emails from the USA, failed registrations with US IPs, so should I block the USA as well?

[Trevor Hannant]

i have an outdoor related website. i only expect traffic from USA and Canada. I have blocked all traffic outside of these 2 countries. very, very rarely does someone get in outside of those 2. most of the work was done in the .htaccess file. i must say though there are still a few everyday that register with an ip address from the USA. if anyone is interested in what i did send me a pm or email <REMOVED>

I've removed your email address from your post...

Rather than keeping advice for other website owners hidden, why not simply post up what you did? Alternatively, if you used instructions freely available on the web, post a link to where you saw it...

[dizzynation]

i have an outdoor related website. i only expect traffic from USA and Canada. I have blocked all traffic outside of these 2 countries. very, very rarely does someone get in outside of those 2. most of the work was done in the .htaccess file. i must say though there are still a few everyday that register with an ip address from the USA. if anyone is interested in what i did send me a pm or email <REMOVED>

This is not a very good idea. You would be surprised how many people outside the US find your site from search engines. Not only that, Google will rank you lower if you block users that find you through search


Having a Question/Answer is the best way to prevent spam.