Some VERY strange forum members!

My guess is they are bots creating accounts for backlinks.

I believe they are bots too

Agree. 0 posts, just delete them and save yourself the headache.

Actually, that entire list looks like profile backlinkers to me. No time to post but enough time to get a URL in their profile. Delete them too

They will make a second pass and add the links then.

What they are doing... it's working. You don't see a backlink so you don't automatically assume that's what they are doing and you aren't deleting the accounts. Believe me, in two weeks to a month backlinks will be added.

Also, if your profiles are publicly viewable they may be added someplace else to avoid easy detection. Profile comments, bio and other random fields are all open to backlinking abuse.

Also, there are automated tools that run two pass backlinking.

They create the profiles and save a list of those accounts. That list can be re-run at anytime to see which profiles are active and re-run at any time to add in backlinks or make changes.

attempting to spam you now

As far as I can tell you're locked down. A person has to be logged in to view a profile which is the #1 thing. That'll discourage most except the forum sig spammers.

Oh the irony if these profile accounts were a result of a back-linking package ordered via WSO :-)

When I had my forum, I just deleted all those type of members with autogenerated numbers. They are either for profile backlinks or they plan on spamming the forum.

Depending on what forum software you're running, you can get plugins/extensions to automatically prevent most spam bots. I run a small forum that was getting dozens of spam signups a day, but after installing a small plugin 99% are caught automatically.

I highly recommend checking StopForumSpam.com Under Resources -> Mods/Plugins to see if there's something you can use.

TipI have a small forum on SMF running, and the spam i am getting is really insane. To make things worse, there is really not one good anti-spam measure known to me for that forum....along with other bugs.

VERY IMPORTANT: Make sure to set your forum links to nofollow (or get a plugin which makes all links nofollow)..otherwise all the spam and p*rn links can seriously hurt your rankings. (Alternatively, spend a lot of time moderating the forum...deleting links etc....but this is just too much work for me personally. Almost EVERYONE posting has some link in their signature)

Tim: There is software for creating those spam bots/links...the most known is Xrumer. They are auto captcha solving. Nothing wrong with your forum.

OMGWTFBBQ

Sorry, couldn't resist. It's one of my favorite headlines. It stuck with me unlike many many others.

When a forum has 291,000+ members there are bound to be a few strange usernames...

As a person whose legal full name is 05AAtim Bradly 04XNginny Jr., I am very much offended by the suggestion that people with unusual alphanumeric names similar to mine are bots.

Those are some odd names. They might be spammer bots trying to create backlinks. I think the Warrior forum has moderators and software that continually looks for this though. However, this forum is so big that sometimes it might take a while before they catch every bot.

Well, if you don't delete them, you may start to see porn or "enhancement" pills posted by those fake accounts or they are just for backlinks.

In another forum I use, those auto-generated accounts have posted porn, buying gold and silver, etc. Either way its spam

I own a pretty large and active forum myself, what a chore that is eh??

These bots or whatever will automatically go to your forum, sign up for an account, and place backlinks in any applicable fields IE website, signatures or forum posts. Sometimes these bots 'fail', and only create the account but fail to create the backlink, which is why some of those bizarre looking accounts were created but didn't have a link left within.

I found that the best solution, for me and my forum, was to make member's profiles and the members list non-public. Basically any user that is not logged-in, cannot view the profile pages thus, any links created here will never be seen by Google.

Keep in mind your forum CAN lose credibility and rankings if you have public profiles and many of them link out to negative, dangerous, spam or other websites that don't adhere to Google's or any other search engine's search quality guidelines. Example, you get 10 members per month creating profiles and linking out to pornographic sites or sites with malware you could have a problem.
If your member's profiles aren't public, if any links slip through the cracks they're worthless for the user and won't harm the reputation of your website.

Also, I require that any new member must have at least 2 posts before they can create a signature. This stops most of the bots right in their tracks as far as creating signature links.

Then there's the issue of bots actually mass posting threads and replies on your forum full of links and spam. This is a bit harder to control, but since I use vbulletin I have the ability to not allow anybody to leave links in posts unless they have xx posts already.

Hope that helps.

I would definitely delete them. I think that these bots are just annoying and you should punish anyone who is trying to use them thinking that mods won't catch them.

It's quite easy to do using software like sick submitter or auto backlink bomb. All you have to do is enter your profile information which can be spun so you don't have exactly the same info for every profile into the software, add the list of forums you want to register to, get some proxies and hit start and the software goes off and does the registering for you. Captchas can easily be solved either manually or using a decpatcher service like death by captcha, and there are also scripts that will automatically solve other anti-bot puzzles. Then wait a couple of days and then run the software to verify all of the verification emails which only takes minutes or even seconds for hundreds of emails. Then wait some more days or however long you prefer so it's not so obvious to admins you're just there to add your backlinks and run the software to go and submit your profile with backlinks and it can all be automated, for example with sick submitter so you can set it to do each task anytime night or day you want it to. If you wanted to you could just make your profile and then add backlinks later on.

Couple this with scrapebox to scrape for hundreds or thousands of forums to register to and bobs your uncle, a ton of backlinks.

Hi,

Chances they are using xrumer.

To get rid of that, make your php registering process a 'challenge-question' response. I.e., instead of choosing captcha, make them answer a question like 'what color is red?'. That stops a lot of spammy accounts from being generated.

There is a plugin for smf that checks usernames on registration for known spam-like activity. If a genuine person wants to register as wsedrftgyhjjjjjj they will run into difficulties. As will people with .ru and .jp email addresses etc.

Bots. Most likely trying to get their links out there and get backlinks.
Here's a quick search that might be useful:

How to make a forum bot? : phpBB2 Forum - en
Member Bots 1.0 - Allow bots to act as members - vBulletin.org Forum
phpBB • View topic - [ABD] Forum AI 0.0.3

I'm a Mod on a couple of other non IM forums. I wouldn't delete the actual user, just lock the profile & delete any outbound links they posted.

Not much point in blocking an IP, most are running proxies for multiple profiles.

I think every forum user name in that screen shot is suspicious. Not just the 3 you pointed out.

To be honest I'd just delete all of those now. None of them seem to be adding any value (zero posts) and they will probably come back later to add their spam links.

-Simon

Xrumer rules, or some ubot programs.

When I owned and ran a couple of high profile forums I would have a modification in place that would automatically delete certain user accounts if they didn't make a single (1) post after a certain amount of days, which was usually 30. This way you are removing any leechers, spammers, or anybody that could potentially ruin your community.

Hmmmm Thats funny come strange thing.. they are bots.

When I saw the title of this thread I was afraid my name would be mentioned. :p

OnlnPharmirus is no doubt a pharma bot or spammer as well.