SPAM? Out of Curiosity...

So, I've received quite a few spam letters here at Boonex, much more than I ever received in any other community (except business networking) that I've ever joined.

I also remember reading somewhere that these sorts of posts have a tendency to pop up on most Dolphin community sites. I have not seen that happen as much in other CMSs I have worked on.

So, my question is... Why Dolphin/Boonex? Is there an obvious way to stop it?

I have read with interest about the service posted previously, and HoustonLively's proposed solution of Global IP bans. My question is more about what drives these people to the sites to begin with over other types of site. I mean, why are "female" (yeah, right) members contacting me because they saw my profile, and they love me, when this is not a dating site?

Is it something in the code that their bots search for? Is this something that can be prevented without the solutions noted above of membership-by-invite only?

*smiles* Thanks! I look forward to your thoughts.

Heather

I have the same, I think its a bot. It's almost every week on or two. Mostly I dump them in spam folder and ignore them

I report them as I hope you will  .....  theoretically they will be dealt with and accounts deleted. (hopefully)

HTH

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Getting the spam doesn't really bother me... I am more interested in what it is about this website construct that would attract bots and how we might prevent that.

There are many communities similar to Dolphin that the bots leave alone. What is it about Dolphin that has bots paying attention to begin with?

Hmmmmmmmm  .....   do the other sites have 42k+ members with Dolphins popularity?

Perhaps that has something to do with it  ..... 

HTH
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Many bots seek out widely used software. Sites running dolphin can easly be sniffed out by bots by looking for boonex.com which is a link that appears in every dolphin site running a free license.

Dolphin sites can also be found with search engines by searching for photo/all/10/1 A link thats pretty much unique to dolphin.

PHPBB is also hit quite often. Every phpbb group site i have put up has been hit by spammers the moment the search engines index it.

I think it's just a matter of popularity.

RumpyBumpy, many have just as many or more... But are not quite as plagued (or at least not in the same way). And why would that mean that other sites without nearly as many members get bots as soon as they open?

deano92964, Good points. I think you have hit it.

What can we do to stop the bots getting in/finding Boonex as soon as a site goes live, if anything?

Thank you for the input.

Agreed that phpBB is always attacked by Spam Bots. I had this running on one of my sites and got hundreds of hits per day by Spam attacks. Some though are not Bots and go in to post stuff...I had to ban their IP addresses.

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For Dolphin: I have not had that much of an issue to date. Although, on a new site that is not even finished (it is forwarded to a Under Construction" page...I had someone go into the Dolphin site and sign up when it is not even done...go figure. And it is under a subdirectory and all....

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~~L