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Detecting forum spam

by seobro
6 replies
How to detect forum spam. Start with a look at USERID and email to see if the look legit to you.

BabyKitten - legit
xqz6u752 - spam

ed@etc.com - legit
Z4@8t2.com - spam

hobbies - legit
no profile - spam

short text - legit
word salad - spam

proper - legit
ESL - spam

wise - legit
nonsense - spam

question - legit
poem - spam

one post - legit
flood - spam

no pics - legit
pink pix - spam

no bold - legit
big bold - spam

zero links - legit
100 links - spam
#detecting #forum #spam
  • Profile picture of the author callumcoutts
    buymycrap.com
    f0r ch3ep V1^gra

    (sorry couldnt resist, at least i made the link no workie).
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    blar blar blar (i talk rubbish most of the time)

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    • Profile picture of the author howinfo
      I did recently changed regular image verification to captcha and it has made a such a big difference. I was getting 10 - 50 spam sign ups a day in spite of banning every spam email address and IP address but since I started using capcha I have not got any of these yet.
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      webhow.org
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  • Profile picture of the author jennypitts
    Although a lot of this IS true with regards to spammers, somethings are not always so. I have seen MANY spammers in this and other forums who have the picture, a decent user name, and even those who ask questions. Stupid questions but questions nonetheless. So the list is not entirely accurate. On that note there are many IMers who are serious businessmen and women and simply do not like using personal pictures, (hey that's me, LOL).

    Anyway, thanks for taking the time to put together this list. But I think spammers now come in all forms.
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    Traffic Exchange - Solo Ads - Contact Solo Ads
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  • Profile picture of the author jonathanleger
    Detecting spam is pretty simple. Just block all messages that use keyword-linked urls.

    e.g. instead of just linking out with a regular url:

    http://somesite.com/

    A spammer will always try a keyword-based link:

    <a href="http://somesite.com/">some spammy keywords</a>

    I also prevent posts from having more than one link in them. That by itself prevents 99% of spam.

    I ran into this when dealing with massive spam at my SMF forums. I hacked the PHP code to block messages with multiple urls (since only spammers were using multiple urls) and it solved the problem. Granted, SOMETIMES you need two urls in a post -- but it's so rare and blocks so much spam that it was worth it.

    Jon
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    The Best Spinner - Hands-down the best content spinner on the planet. Version 3.0 adds a massive number of powerful new features (and a super-improved interface).
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  • Profile picture of the author aandersen
    one super obvious sign of xrumer is the random out of context post

    though the smarter spammers will scrape targes by niche and keyword and then try to write a good generic post that get through and these sometimes blend right in.
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    signature goes here

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    • Profile picture of the author ContentArticleWriter
      Originally Posted by aandersen View Post

      one super obvious sign of xrumer is the random out of context post

      though the smarter spammers will scrape targes by niche and keyword and then try to write a good generic post that get through and these sometimes blend right in.

      SO TRUE!!! I have seen a lot of these, mostly in other forums. I have to say WF moderators are pretty good about staying on top of spammers. But I have totally seen those out of context and completely irrelevant forum posts; which are NOT the obvious one-liners but are definitely spam once you analyze it. I have also seen the spammers who have a user name and a signature that are related to each other, then they ask a question that is undoubtedly a spam question. Say for example I were to ask: What is the correct balance between keywords and content in an article? Or, What is keyword stuffing?

      Most of you would laugh, tell me I should know the answer because after all, I am a content article writer, and furthermore you would accuse me of spam. RIGHT? NOW, THOSE are the spammers that really BUG me big time!!!
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