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Spam is a real problem for every webmaster working on any online platform, whether its blog, website, forum or guestbook you will see spammers doing their job to send spam posts with their spammy website links. Today, I have noticed some spam posts on our forums and was wondering how did this happen? Well, since we are just under development stage and haven’t done any security settings on our forum the spam happened. Vbulletin have some good options to secure down your forum, So I am going to show you how to avoid spam posts on your forum.
To develop a forum VBulletin is the best choice as of now, Maybe there are other users who will not agree but we all have our own opinions. Anyways that’s a different issue and for now, we will focus on how to stop spammy links on your forum.
Here are step by step instructions to stop spam on your forum
1. Set Captcha under Human verification manager.
Go to AdminCP -> Settings -> Human Verification Manager and here we can set the Question & Answer Verification, image verification,eCAPTCHAâ„¢ 1.0, reCAPTCHAâ„¢ 2.0.
We have decided to use Google Captcha because this one works really well, In below screenshot we have to use the reCAPTCHAâ„¢ 2.0. Then click on Save Button.
It will ask for reCAPTCHA key, You need to enter the key. Instructions for generating reCAPTCHA key can be found at the following link: https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/android.html.
Please read the link carefully, obviously, you will require a google account.
2. Moderate new member registration before their account is activated.
It's very important to keep a watch on new members signing up on your forum, You can identify the spammers easily that way. So how do you do that? Follow the given steps.
Steps: Go to AdminCp -> Settings -> Options-> User Registration Option -> In that enable the moderate new member.
3. Stop Automatic Registration.
There are automated ways where spammers get registered automatically but using bots, So to avoid automatic registrations on default registration page, Add more additional Information field on your registration page. That will fail the automatic attempts for registration.
Steps: AdminCp -> Expand User Profile Fields -> Click on Add New User Profile Field -> Select Single-Line Text Box and Click on Continue Button.
Fill the Title and the Description Box. In the Description Box, we can mention just the text or we can also mention the HTML code.
Click on Save Button.
4. Disable Profile Viewing For Guest Users.
The Users which are not registered disable the option Can View Member info As No.
Steps:
AdminCp -> UserGroups -> UserGroup Manager -> on that click on UnRegistered / Not Logged In .
Click on Go Button.
In section General Permissions :
You can set the Can View Member info as No.
5. Email Verification.
As new members continue to register on your forum, You need to automate as much as you can, So email verification is the best way to legitimate verified users, For example, when a member registers an email should be dispatched to the member's email Id where he is asked to click on the activation link. This is a very common feature on every forum and regular practice.
Steps: Click on AdminCp -> Expand Settings -> Option -> select User Registration Option -> Set Verify Email address in Registration to Yes.