My forum is blowing up - Help please

[pitbully]

About 6 months ago I started a discussion forum using vBulletin and I've put a crazy amount of work into it, but it's finally starting to pay off. In recent weeks my traffic/user base has exploded to the point where I'm starting to worry I'm out of my league here as far as SEO goes, which concerns me because most of the new traffic is organic.

I didn't expect it to grow so suddenly and somebody was just telling me that big forums can fuck up their rankings if they aren't set up the right way with outgoing link settings etc. I can keep up with most of the spam manually at this point but what basic settings do I need to use within my forum to keep spam from destroying my rankings? Is manual detection the only way?

I need help from anybody who knows about running forums. Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[AquaticGamer]

Are the members joining your forum just a big bunch of spam? Because i've created a forum before and within 1 day gotten 2k+ members which are all fake for some reason.

 

[pitbully]

Are the members joining your forum just a big bunch of spam? Because i've created a forum before and within 1 day gotten 2k+ members which are all fake for some reason.

No I'd say about 80% of the users are posting legitimate threads and using the site properly. But if it keeps growing at this pace I'm worried it might cause a problem if I don't have things set up the right way.

 

[elviswong]

Are the members joining your forum just a big bunch of spam? Because i've created a forum before and within 1 day gotten 2k+ members which are all fake for some reason.

COUNT ME IN !
At first i was so excited (dumb ass me lol) but the very next day i went hummmmm something's fishy here...

 

[Veyron]

Look for legitimate members who are contributing actively and see if they'd be interested in becoming Moderators.

Veyron

 

[howard_hughes]

you might want to make the registration procedure tight, because spam (due to fake members) can really kill your forum.

Also, get a mod to block out spamming ips completely.

Make (recaptcha and a custom question) mandatatory to join the forum & email activation needed to post anything on forum.

 

[divok]

there are a lot of anti-spam plugins/hacks available for vBulletin . Also find some excited members and make them mods for a few bucks etc .

 

[naveen]

Use reCAPTCHA, Random Questions For Registration (with your own questions, not the defaults), and Project HoneyPot HTTP Blacklist Addons. They will stop most of the spam. Use a plugin that can remove website field in registration form and also a plugin to deny mail from domains other than free mail services like Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. I have seen lot of spam from Russia with mail accounts from their own domains. They probably use their own domains with random email to pass through the spam filters. Also, don't allow members to post URLs until they have reached a specific post count.

I use MyBB forum software with above plugins and settings and it stopped forum spam 99.99%.

 

[funkybunker]

there are a lot of anti-spam plugins/hacks available for vBulletin . Also find some excited members and make them mods for a few bucks etc .

Hiring Mods has proven to be important here at BHW, so in areas manual detection is necessary go for it, but don't go paying chump change and choosing just anyone.

Lots of great advice here that I didn't know. Just sharing my suggestion.

 

[divok]

Hiring Mods has proven to be important here at BHW, so in areas manual detection is necessary go for it, but don't go paying chump change and choosing just anyone.

Lots of great advice here that I didn't know. Just sharing my suggestion.

I didn't meant anyone , i meant people who are posting quite often . Secondly , from my previous exp. it is better to have some incentives for the staff for a stronger community .

 

[ContentWriter]

Have you considered hiring someone to manage your forum?
Choose someone who has experience in being a forum administrator or moderator.
While using anti-spam plugins can help, it is still a lot better to use a human moderator.

 

[vancefanning]

I think you have to choose a kind of person who has great relevant knowledge and have the ability to moderate your forum effectively.

 

[Deleted member 658642]

I didn't meant anyone , i meant people who are posting quite often . Secondly , from my previous exp. it is better to have some incentives for the staff for a stronger community .

Mods who work for cash. Now thats food for thought. I agree with this.

But TBH, if I owned a forum, I'd choose people who I know really well and who are sincere as my staff.

 

[prab1996]

i have experience.

pm sent.
-=-

 

[AquaticGamer]

I'm kinda starting to think this thread is trying to attract people over to his forum..

 

[bartosimpsonio]

No I'd say about 80% of the users are posting legitimate threads and using the site properly. But if it keeps growing at this pace I'm worried it might cause a problem if I don't have things set up the right way.

If your traffic is legitimate then don't worry. Too much FUD being spread lately...if you've got a legitimate real user base, let the forum be a natural place, just take care of the spam and occasional rude/offensive user.

Congrats on your success! A forum "blowing up" like yours is every forum admin's dream

 

[outrankcompetition]

Get the plugins and get more modernators :idea:

 

[Deleted member 731332]

I have owned a couple of forums on IPB, for a few years now. I do own a VB license but I just cant stand the software, so I never used it. What I do on my IPB installs is no-follow all outgoing links on the board. Some links are ******** but placed on a page by admin only. Look in the VB resource (addon) website for a stopforumspam hook or plugin. That will help curb most of that spammer registration. I guarantee a lot of that is spammers. I had over 2k registrations on one of my boards yesterday, 5 were legit users lol.

Good luck with your board!

 

[hotdew]

Hiring Mods has proven to be important here at BHW, so in areas manual detection is necessary go for it, but don't go paying chump change and choosing just anyone.

Lots of great advice here that I didn't know. Just sharing my suggestion.

Good suggestion, but he's better off asking an active/passionate member to be a mod, and say give the mod incentives. Maybe not paid (Shawn once said DP does not pay mods, but he's an hardcore programmer so it might not relate to the OP), although I recently started offering my services to be a paid forum moderator for worried forum admins.

I'm kinda starting to think this thread is trying to attract people over to his forum..

Hmm! I don't see a link to his forum, so how do you think he's doing that?

 

[followbak]

PM me the site and what not I would love to help!