Hyper-link Spammers! Read This

[nearmiss]

1. Hyper-Link Spammers have to go through the registration process.

2. Hyper-Link Spammers have to create their posting with links and other junk.... this takes a lot of time and effort.

3. Hyper-Link Spamers are wasting their time!

4. Moderators BAN you and delete your postings with 2 clicks of the mouse.

Also, the search bots don't run this site near as often as you might think.

The chances of your links being run by the search bots are nil.

So... effectively, you are just wasting time and effort for what?

"stupid is a stupid does" : by Forrest Gump

[Avimimus]

Are you sure they aren't robots? If so it isn't a matter of effort - the only thing preventing us from being totally inundated is the fact that there has to be enough worthwhile material on the forums to attract people in order for them to see the spam.

[nearmiss]

Search Engine Optimization drives hyper-link spam.

The Spammer isn't trying to reach an audience to click on their sites from this site. It's all about the Search engine spider bots seeing their hyper-links on our site.

Effectively, the more links to your site the better search engine placement you get for your sites. The logic is that if enough people link to you then your site must have more valuable content, especially if then link is from a high volume usage site like this one.

It appears this forums had been put into some kind of queue or listing that feeds Spammer software. The captha has to be a human entry, but everything else is computer generated.

The spammer bot completes registration, the spammer enters the captha (graphic data) and then when the registration email arrives the spammer has to click to complete the registration. This does require some additional effort on the part of the Spammer. The actual content placed on these boards is probably just a cut/paste thing.

I think a busy forums like this one, which includes all the 1C games is a prime target of spammers. The spammer just wants us to ignore his postings long enough for search spider bots to run the site.

Currently, we're eliminating the postings just about as fast as they go up. So, the spammers are wasting their time here. If we backed off and let them have their go at us... like they have over the past month they would love it.

We are looking at some other security options, and possibly doing some research on Spammer IPs. The Spammers are smarter and have a cooperative provider that is changing IPs constantly. The thing is the Internet provider has a specified number of IPs. Even though the Internet Provider assigns new IP addresses contantly there are only so many changes that can be made. All IPs point one internet provider, even if the someone is allocating them among many users.

The Internet Provider could lose big, if his registration is pulled for abusive use of his Ip addresses.

I can understand some poor butt in Indonesia, West Africa,etc. where there are no jobs and no money doing the spam thing. Afterall, spamming is more constructive than sitting around crying about how broke and hungry they are.

I personally have deleted 5 spammer postings during the time it took me to write this posting. An invasion...LOL

Everytime the spammer makes a posting I get an email. I delete them very quickly, depending on how busy I am at the time. Regardless, the chances of the Spammer links being picked up by "Search Engine Spider Bots" is NIL.

I still think of spammers as dumb butts like the guy in the middle in above video. Constantly getting whacked...

[WTE_Galway]

Seems to me that if the very first new thread by a new user needs moderator approval before its visible, the problem would go away very quickly.

[nearmiss]

You aren't wrong, it would seem...Simhq.com has a requirement that Http type email addresses are not acceptable. If you register with them you have to furnish an IP email. Then you have to be accepted by a moderator for posting. Most sites that have a strong marketing bias, as this one don't generally like to restrict their sites. They want easy access to information and community.

We are looking at several issues, which require code changes within the vbulletin board software. It is always best to hesitate before you make code changes, who knows what else lies in the details.

Anyway, deleting the spam isn't that big a problem. It's a couple of clicks to delete. The biggest problem is... some of us have to work, and sleep. So, we do have some periods where coverage of the boards is not as good as it could be.

We should have a solution shortly.

Thanks to everyone for your patience. Keep reporting bad postings we'll remove ASAP.