Stopping Spamming Registrations

[heroestheseries]

Hi, guys. When i was running phpbb, I got about 5 daily spammers registering by hand (i.e. someone had to sit there and register with fake names and emails). I ended up stopping that by requiring that I approve all registrations personally (I usually look at their website address, because all spammers put their spam sites in their website field). What is the best and most efficient way to stop spammers from registering in VB? Any suggestion is appreciated.

[Steve Machol]

How to Reduce Spam and Registration Bots

[heroestheseries]

How to Reduce Spam and Registration Bots

But I've noticed that VB doesn't send me an email telling me there are new registrations for me to approve/disapprove. is this correct, or am I missing an option to activate this? For instance, phpbb sends me an email every time someone registers, and I can elect to approve or disapprove them. Is there a similar option in VB?

[Steve Machol]

Add your email address here:

Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> User Registration Options -> Email Address to Notify About New Members

[NathanLedet]

Try this:
AdminCP > vBulletin Options > User Registration Options > Moderate New Members: Yes

[feldon23]

Moderating New Members is rather ineffective because unless they have a suspicious e-mail or suspicious birthday, you don't know their intentions. I prefer to moderate the first posts of each user and if it's not B.S., then I promote them to a group that has fewer restrictions.

[heroestheseries]

Add your email address here:

Admin CP -> vBulletin Options -> User Registration Options -> Email Address to Notify About New Members

Oh wow I don't know how I missed that. Thanks, Steve.

feldon23, I know, it's kind of hard to tell, but I've figured out a pretty good system. Just look at the website they put in their website field. It's always a porn or "viagra"-type site. You can usually tell just by glancing at the URL itself (they have those spam site generators that spits out keyword filled URL sites) but sometimes you need to see where the link takes you. Almost 99% of every spammer I've caught and banned (nearly 300 or so in the 6 months since the forum became active) has been stupid enough to fill in their spamming site. They are busy buggers, but not that bright apparently.

[emwonk]

I'm amazed at the recent increase in spammers.

My forum has only 200 or so legitimate members out of a possible base in the US of about 70,000 total possible members.

Almost nobody knows about my site, but the damned spammers are now finding me at a rate of about 3 or 4 per day now.

I have instituted the email banning, and created a new member group who get their posts moderated. But I now have to be online all day to watch for legitimate registrations so I don;t delay legitimate new members from interacting.

It's pretty darn frustrating.

How are these guys finding us?
Is this getting worse for everybody just now, or is my site now on some kind of spammer list?
How do the big site deal with this without going crazy? There is no way I will have time to manually deal with every single new member who comes along.

I see this as a really big strategic issue for the continued success of Vbulletin. Am I alone in this? Or just new to forum owner ship and too-easily frustrated?

[nUCLEArcENTURy]

my site has been getting more than 20 or so spammers a day and i can't approve everyone my self.

[feldon23]

I would recommend approving posts instead of users. Less trips to the AdminCP. And setup a Recycle Bin.