Zero Posters

**fattony** · 05:34 PM

I decided to start a new thread as I didnt want to hijack the other thread!

In the last hours I've had about 6 people signup to my forum, the last 3 have used @gmail email address's and wondering if these are bots? Can a bot confirm an email address, and do bots log into their created account on a regular basis?

As always quite a few people are signing up but little activity, could I improve the content in anyway?

Lastly should I deactivate the bots from my forum, I'm talking googlebot etc or are they crawling the site which in the end will help me out?
I have download the hack for phpbb which adds a question which hopefully bots cant get passed, I hope to install this tomorrow, all good be innocent but about 35 out of 42 of my members dont talk - this could be content related.

**joder** · 05-20-2008, 06:49 PM

How have you gotten the word out about your forum?

**joder** · 05-20-2008, 08:27 PM

You don't know what it is but you are interested to join?

**fattony** · 01:41 PM

The forum was introduced onto an existing site which was already receiving good traffic, I introduced it so I could limit the bandwidth guests can download so there is an incentive to register (get more bandwidth) I have promoted the website through general SEO, links in my sig lines in forums I use article writing etc.

I'm going to implement an anti bot registration modification I got from phpbb, another 6 members joined today, I just wonder if a bot did create these accounts would they be logging into them on a regular basis as these accounts are active, in the fact someone is loggin in to use the script.

As asked the forum is www.vidripscript.com/forums

**fattony** · 05-21-2008, 03:55 PM

Ok I got the anti bot question installed, I just added a question What is 2 + 2? obviously the user needs to enter 4. Could this replace the captcha code or is it best to leave the 2 in place?

**Nebuchadnezzar** · 05-28-2008, 06:25 PM

I have noticed this as well on my forums. Though I have taken steps to make it a lot better, I believe a lot are bots that are designed to saturate the net with backlinks to the advertiser's site including forums in which there is a URL field in users' profiles.

Just my two cents, though.

**dWhite** · 05-28-2008, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fattony

Ok I got the anti bot question installed, I just added a question What is 2 + 2? obviously the user needs to enter 4. Could this replace the captcha code or is it best to leave the 2 in place?

Sadly, only the dumb bots won't be able to answer that. The smarter ones can answer it, and even read CAPTCHA images with even the heaviest settings for it.

**louderthenlife.** · 06-04-2008, 05:28 PM

wow!
i would never think a bot could do that,
and i don't think so,
bots are still not human,
and they have programs and stuff which they probably use,
not to make them sign up for things.

**Convert2Steve** · 06-10-2008, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by louderthenlife.

wow!
i would never think a bot could do that,
and i don't think so,
bots are still not human,
and they have programs and stuff which they probably use,
not to make them sign up for things.

you would be amazed at what they can do these day bro!
bots are even successful with OCR (breaking captcha's) these days!

if a bot can break captcha's at a 10-40% success rate on some sites and gain access / create a profile that is much better than doing it by hand!

**willcode4beer** · 06-11-2008, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Convert2Steve

you would be amazed at what they can do these day bro!
bots are even successful with OCR (breaking captcha's) these days!

if a bot can break captcha's at a 10-40% success rate on some sites and gain access / create a profile that is much better than doing it by hand!

Registering for sites really sucks, I have bots do the work for me. I just have better things to do with my life than fill out registration forms.

I do make the actual posts/comments/rants though (at least, I think this is me).