Spam

[Dave Marshall]

Hi,

I want to get a forum going but have done so in the past and been spammed to death, could not keep up with the spammers and had to let the forum go. I used a free forum last time but am hoping with a paid one to get more power to control the spammers.

Does VBulletin have anything in place to help me keep those spammers out?

thanks for your reply

cheers

Dave

[Colin F]

Hello Dave,

We have quite a few options in place to help prevent and fight spam. These range from image verification for new registrations over usergroup promotion, allowing you to moderate a users first few posts, to easy tools to deal with spam if they do get past you.

Here's a thread with tips on reducing spam with vBulletin: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=211647
While the technical details won't help you much right now, it should give you a better idea of some of the tools vBulletin has to prevent spam.

[Jobe1986]

And from an experiance point of view, in the 7 months ive had my vBulletin forum ive only had 3 spammer's and seen countless Guest's aparently registering but never succeed.

The 3 spammers that did get through can be explained away with the fact that there are some human spammers who you cant stop from getting through spam protection.

[DelphiVillage]

that are actually humans providing the CAPTCHA code .... or the answer to verification questions

[Jingus]

Once you have your vBulletin you will be able to down load this.

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=131852

I haven't had one successful spam registration since I installed this hack and I am still averaging at least ten attempts every day.
This hack blocks every single one of them.
I also highly recomend a period of moderation for new members.
Trolls will make a shambles of your website if they are able to post freely when they register, I have seen it happen many times.

[Jobe1986]

Once you have your vBulletin you will be able to down load this.

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=131852

I haven't had one successful spam registration since I installed this hack and I am still averaging at least ten attempts every day.
This hack blocks every single one of them.
I also highly recomend a period of moderation for new members.
Trolls will make a shambles of your website if they are able to post freely when they register, I have seen it happen many times.

It's all very well suggesting a mod but the one you linked to cannot be downloaded anymore:

This modification cannot be downloaded - it is available for information purposes only.

[Fusion]

It has most likely been replaced, possibly by a Pro alternative. Try a search.

[slappy]

There are methods using .htaccess files which can be used to ban various IP address and IP strings. If you use the search button here and use

.htaccess

as your search criteria, you will finds many. The minimum word length for the search is 4 letters, so remember that if you want to add additional words. such as

.htaccess file.

See my post #8 in this Thread:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=237510

for some specifics on how to ban specific IPs and ranges of IPs with .htaccess files.

There are more Threads here and alot of information on the net on IP banning with .htaccess files.

Regards,