Here’s a problem I have… every single day I get several ‘people’ signing up for accounts on my forum. In my inbox I see emails like this one:
“Hello,
“The account owned by “oakljybldh” has been deactivated or newly created, you should check the details of this user (if required) and handle it appropriately.”
Where’s the problem?
This account, and most of them that come through on a daily basis, are fake, robot accounts!
How can I tell? Well, first of all, my forum is not public. It is a private forum for members of my List Marketing System program that I don’t advertise anywhere.
Secondly, the account names are unreadable. They are a random selection of characters.
Thirdly, the email address is usually a Hotmail one or ends in unusual domain roots, e.g. .pl
You might be thinking, “Well, just don’t activate those fake accounts,” and you’re right. I can do that. The problem is that is such an annoying and boring task, sifting through the new accounts and finding which ones are legitimate and which ones are not. Especially when you have to do it 6 times a day (and it’s getting worse) and you’ve got better things you could be doing with your time.
You might also be saying to yourself, “If it’s such a hassle, just set the phpBB forum settings so that new user accounts are activated automatically. What’s the big deal? Just give everyone access. The more, the merrier. Right?”
No.
There’s a reason people are sending robots out there to create forum accounts. Can you guess what it is?
That’s right… SPAM!
The persons behind these fake forum accounts want to be able to promote their website ALL over your forum. They’re not interested in offering any real value.
What was the mistake I made when installing my phpBB forum? I installed it on a subdirectory called ‘forum’. That makes my site an easy target for robots.
My advice is this; if you’re going to install a phpBB forum, I’d suggest that you install it in a directory OTHER than ‘forum’. I’m sure that’s what this robots are scouring the web for.
Have you had this same experience? What have you done to sort out the issue? Please leave a comment below.