Help required :) Membership and spam advice on my forum

[Zola de Cwtchi]

I have had a spammer sign up as a member on my forum...in the Member details, they have put some nasty keywords in the website area, it's a link, underlined and linkable straghtback to my address!

What does this mean?

Not worried, was expecting something like this...its the second one in total, however the first spammer just linked their site without any dodgy wording.

Thanks x

[pure-wicked]

Easiest way to cover this is to delete the post, ban the member but also ban the ip if not the ip range, in your admin panel you'll see what options are available to you but usually its a backlink to a dodgy website of some sort.

If you block the ip address you should stop them coming back on with a different username but if you can ban an ip range you may be able stop them coming back even if their ip changes as often only the last few numbers change

Regards Dave

[Rainee Bows]

You could add a captcha to the sign up we have added a very good one to this forum, minimal spam

Rain
xxxx

[Grifter]

Is this for your forum in your sig?

I dunno if they are linking back to your site with nasty keyword phrases perhaps they are trying to undermine you by anchoring links. Strange really.

Or it's an auto cockup. Things like xrumer will easily run through registering with captcha and such. The clever way they are doing it lately though will come in the future. Look for new signups that either introduce themselves or say hello on someone else's thread (more common) and then you hear nothing from them for months. These auto scripts will then come back and edit the post (or their sig) and insert a backlink in order not to get noticed by a mod.

[Zola de Cwtchi]

Thanks for the response as always

And yes thats where im coming from Grifter looks like they have done as you said...keywords relating to incest and the like, situated in the member's details, the url space where they could put their own website url has dodgy keywords in blue linkage...i hover with curser over it and at the bottom left hand corner it shows the forum's url.

Why strange? as in rare?

So if i just delete and ban and block isp and isp range, thanks Dave, i will be ok?

Obviously its another subject to read up and enjoy lol

Many thanks x

[scotserve]

Go for double opt in, meaning the email is verified before sign up is allowed, use admin verification before they can post, use captcha images to deter the bots, limit areas they can post in or do not allow posting until verified

This is very common for forums and if you dont nip it in the bud with a sign up policy it will get a whole lot worse