Members inserting links on a later date by editing old post

[froggyboy604]

I notice that there are some human spammers who act like regular members for a few days, and after a few days, weeks, or months, they edit their old topics, and insert unrelated links like "medicinal products, Gold" to topics not related to the topic of the posts.

Is this a form of blackhat SEO, and forum spam?

I notice spammers are starting to act like regular members to spam on a later date by editing their old posts, and pasting a bunch of spammy links a few days, weeks, and months later to promote their products and websites.

Do any of you guys have this problem of people inserting spammy links onto their posts on a later date, so it won't be detected as easily?

How do you deal with this problem?

 

[Hissae2]

Re: Memberss inserting links on a later date by editing old

Stop people from editing after 48 hours. This stops spammers and this can also stop angry users removing all their posts. 😛

 

[dballerp]

Re: Memberss inserting links on a later date by editing old

Stop people from editing after 48 hours. This stops spammers and this can also stop angry users removing all their posts. 😛

What if it's a thread that the person needs to update? There's no need to go this far at all

 

[etc]

Re: Memberss inserting links on a later date by editing old

I did experienced this type of spammers so i edited the settings so they can just edit thier post within a period of time.

Such people are just combatant and won't stop even when theyre already told to.

 

[froggyboy604]

Re: Members inserting links on a later date by editing old p

^I think they don't even read the rules, or don't care for Internet etiquette. They seem to just post random generic posts just to get through the post limit or spam their links everywhere.

They also like to post lines above their links like

__________
Spammy links

I changed the settings to my forum where you can only edit posts for 60 minutes, and after 60 minutes the member can't edit it since I feel 60 minutes is long enough for most edits.

I found two member accounts on my forum which seem to be hacked or sold to spammers since the members where previously well-behaved members, and didn't insert links, or they recently turned bad after 2 years of being inactive, and decided to join the spammers to spam links according to their edit date.

Weirdly, they both were spamming the same types of links for car parts, drugs, and medical equipment, and their edit dates are on the same week.

 

[etc]

Re: Members inserting links on a later date by editing old p

they also do that to make their links look like their signature but they actually drop it . most of them seem to be legit user though so i just monitor thier posts every now and then.

 

[Fait]

Re: Members inserting links on a later date by editing old p

Yea.I wondered why a member was acting like a normal member oon my older site
I checked up their ip address and it turned out it was a spammer on the stop forum spam database

From now on if your human or not if your on the stop forum spam database i may aswill ban them

 

[Hotspot]

Re: Members inserting links on a later date by editing old p

Wow, I have never heard or seen this before. But it definitely sounds very sneaky!
Going to have to keep a close eye out!

 

[Migi]

Re: Members inserting links on a later date by editing old p

I have never came across this kind of member before so I wouldn't go as far as what Hissae2 said. I let members to be able to edit their posts for as long as they need, no restrictions. They may need to update the post and it's troublesome if they have to do it through moderators or administrators, they can be angry that way too.

 

[Samalan]

Re: Members inserting links on a later date by editing old p

I have never experienced this before but when I had my forum which was powered on SMF, there was this mod I used so when you banned somebody, all their posts were deleted as well by simply clicking this one button so if somebody was to spam or edit their posts with spam at a later date - wouldn't be hard!

Using that mod on SMF and I am sure there is one for other software, I allow them to edit their posts at any time.

 

[Migi]

Re: Members inserting links on a later date by editing old p

I have never experienced this before but when I had my forum which was powered on SMF, there was this mod I used so when you banned somebody, all their posts were deleted as well by simply clicking this one button so if somebody was to spam or edit their posts with spam at a later date - wouldn't be hard!

The bad idea from that kind of modification is probably if the member you must ban has already posted quite a large amount of posts, say few hundreds or thousands. You will lose quite an amount of post, and the conversation from where the posts are gone will feel strange since there are posts missing in between.

I personally have never found this case, only heard it from other administrators, so I wouldn't really bother much to install or modify anything to prevent this. I think the chance are not that big. And you can rely on other members reporting it too, IMO. ^_^

 

[BlackChaos]

Re: Members inserting links on a later date by editing old p

Do what I do mate. I made it so that members with less than 50 posts will not be able to edit their posts after 48 hours.
If your forum is using myBB software, this should easily let you do just that: http://mods.mybb.com/view/edit-time-lim ... ermissions

 

[Hotspot]

Re: Members inserting links on a later date by editing old p

Do what I do mate. I made it so that members with less than 50 posts will not be able to edit their posts after 48 hours.
If your forum is using myBB software, this should easily let you do just that: http://mods.mybb.com/view/edit-time-lim ... ermissions

I know that Zetaboards also has this feature.