If you run forums then you probably have dealt with your fair share of spam. Here are some of the more sneaky approaches that people will try to steal your hard earned traffic. I’ve taken some time to prepare a small list of some of the more common methods that spammers are using lately to get their free plug.

1. The Prospective User:  These people will join your forums and make one or two posts. The post will be something like this. “Hello! Nice community you have here! I look forward to getting to know all of you! Hey have any of you ever bought anything from xyz-store.blah? I heard they have really good prices but I am worried about using my credit card online. Can you help me? Thanks!” Gullible admins might think that this person truly is asking about that website. The truth is 10 times out of 10, they own the website. This person might seem nice at first glance, but, I would ban and delete them on the spot. I do not believe in giving warnings to spammers. Obviously they have no reason to be here except to plug their stuff.


2. The Sig Spammer: This person will make a legitimate yet short post that really doesn’t add to the topic of discussion whatsoever. They will reply with things such as “I agree!” or “That’s cool!” They have no intention of making an intelligent reply, and in fact, the only reason they are posting at all is because at the end of their post they type a link and description of their website. This is different than people who put a link in their sig and make legitimate posts. I have no problem letting people benefit from my forums if they are contributing members, but if somebody is going to make “flood” type replies just to plug their link, I’ll ban them without a second thought.

3. The Disguised Link Spammer: This person will make a full reply that on it’s own would probably be considered a solid post. However, this person will hide links in commas or periods to try to get search engine bots to follow their links. At first glance, the untrained admin eye might not even notice that the commas or periods have a slight underline. Even worse, if your forum does not display an underline for linked text you might not even notice if somebody is doing this or not. I suggest always doing something to make your links stand out so you are sure to notice the people trying to cheat the system.

These are just a few of the trickier types of spammers I’ve run into. There are of course, the total idiots who simply spam “actual spam” like PayPal schemes, cheap prescription drugs, etc. I don’t think it’s hard to notice those types though, so there’s not much point in describing their methods.