Recently I encountered

[domainswapper]

several features of the indexu directory that seem poorly designed so I have confidence that someone has a mod or workaround for this.I upgraded the script several months ago to the latest vs..We are making a new format to show ad prices without requiring sign up.according to the admin panel it is a good idea to leave the pre ad sign up on to reduce spam.NOT in my site.In my membership area ,I had about 30 sex /pharma sites that simply signed up as members then put text link in "homepage",as well as add about 10 more spam links in there "bio" section.Ok; that can happen !.it does bring up the question:why would anyone buy a paid listing if they can just sign up and spam away for free?,especially since this opportunity arises before they have even seen the sites ad rates/policy?;much less gone to the listing form..What anti spam features are available to stop the memebership area from being a link farm?Some things I thought minght be available in the admin panel would be making membership links "nofollow"..addl. anti spam features?I did not see these features.Next I had to remove the spam.In the admin panel there is no provisions to display a member list that I saw.Each spam entry must be deleted by inserting the home page of the spamer one at a time;in my site it could not find the members by u/n.Obviously if a big attack occured this could turn into a big problem.I was disapointed in the lack of features regarding managment of the member area.So I am confident that I am either ignorant of the ways to do this or modifications to improve this.Thanks for any tips!

[FSGDAG]

Are you requiring Admin or Editors approval before a link gets approved??? This in itself would keep SPAM from automatically being inserted.

In Admin -> Tools -> Bad Word Filters - If you populate this area with the well known spam words, the links will then go into the SPAM Links under Links so you can easily reject them.

[esm]

my first suggestion for you is to break your comments into different paragraphs. makes it easier to read.

to get a list of of links, click the Search/Edit/Delete hyperlink in the Links section of the Admin Control Panel. While it is not obvious, to get a listing of links, do not enter any filter criteria. Just click the "Search Link" button.

The spam feature is what it is. Same thing with the ACP. I don't think there are any changes planned for either of these in the next version of INDEXU. If you don't like what they do in v5.4, then you probably won't like what they do in v6.0.

Use the bad words filter feature, spam links and category Permission features. This should also help reduce spam.

You want to make "membership links "nofollow"...??? I thought the idea was to get Search Engines to index pages on your website. I'm pretty sure they is no feature that allows you to directly do this on a link-by-link basis from within INDEXU.

That's all I have. I'm too lazy to sort thru the rest of your post for anything more.



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[FSGDAG]

Content visible to License Owner only.

ROFL!!!!!!!!

[Bruceper]

It's a hard read, I'll agree with that.

Do as FSGDAG said and enter spam keywords into the bad words filter. Then double check your category permissions to make sure they require editors approval.

For searching links you do not need to search by URL, you can search by keyword as well. Simply enter "viagra" into the description box and hit search. That would return any site that used viagra in their description. The user search works the same way.

Last, make sure user validation is required.

[mpdaddy]

I had the same problem with users signing up and not adding any links. They would put their pharma link in their profile as their homepage. I had the same user sign up like 30 times with different url's in each profile.

I added Disallow: /user_search.php to my robots.txt file. Then I banned the email address and IP address using my banned mod. He has not been back since.

I also entered common spam keywords into the bad words filter, which has seemed to help a little bit. The only submissions I have ever received have been spam.

Regards
Wayne

[Bruceper]

We detailed spam signups previously in the forum here and they do get annoying. You could remove the column for homepage and that would alleviate the issue.

[domainswapper]

A lot of commentary on post stucture.There seems to be many comments relating to listing..This is not regarding listing but the "user profile section".This entire section is spam heaven as html is apparently allowed all through the section.I assume you can set links to manual approval.so that would be easy to stop.The join function has poor security as noted.The idea of word filter is not likely to stop as they will just use typos and then put porn links etc in the "about me " bio section..unless it looks at every word in the contents of each member profile?.What i mean is let's say I sign up as www-bestonlinedeals.com as my homepage link in my member profile then i add 10 drug and hardcore porn links in the rest of my member profile.what will stop me?

[domainswapper]

Content visible to License Owner only.

you sug references directory links..how would you require preapprove for member sign ups which do not require any purchase of links or any reciprocal listing either?

[domainswapper]

"You want to make "membership links "nofollow"...??? I thought the idea was to get Search Engines to index pages on your website. I'm pretty sure they is no feature that allows you to directly do this on a link-by-link basis from within INDEXU.

That's all I have. I'm too lazy to sort thru the rest of your post for anything more".....I don't want search engine doing anything on unaproved links!!!!!.I want people to purchase or do reciprocal links...Forcing prospective customers through a signup proceedure that wastes there time trying to find out what a listing minght cost [before they even know if they want one..cause they have to sign up first to find out..]then routes them to a signup area where if they are so inclined; they can post numerous free links with no restrictions seems to defeat the concept of a directory;to manage and charge for ad links in a organized way.
Why would I purchase a directory listing if I can use the member area to obtain free links until caught?.The option of nofollow links is in php directories...If the Indexu is going to have a membership system then perhaps this option should be offered to discourage people from signing up for the purpose of spam.I just deleted 20 members; so inclined ....guess what ?.none of them bought or reciprocated anything.once word gets around in the pharma world a spam sunami will come.

[Bruceper]

If you don't want users to sign up before they place a link on your site then you're going to have to deal with spam submissions.

Deleting members doesn't solve your issue. Remove the field for HomePage during signups or remove the row for HomePage on the members page. That will solve the issue.

[esm]

well, I think I understand the first sentence and the last sentence. so I'll address those. I leave it to others to make sense of the stuff in between . My brain, what is left of it, refuses to try to understand anthing more.

Content visible to License Owner only.

umm, pardner, until you approve the link, it just don't exist. And if it don't exist, there ain't a search engine in the world, including our beloved Google, that can "do anything on it." So set your links to require approval, and poof! problem solved. Damn, that was easy....! Am I good or what...!!! ( I always wanted to find a way to use the "Stick out tongue" smiley...!!! ). Now if women were this easy for me to solve.

Content visible to License Owner only.

Is the pharma world anything like the ethernet world...??? (If you were born after 1950, look up the origin of the word ethernet).

Oh, no! please don't let the spam sunami get us....!!! Run for the hills, Martha, the spam sunami is after us....!!!

Well, I did tell you that I understood his first and last sentence.



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[FSGDAG]

Content visible to License Owner only.

OMG!!!! ROFL!!! Too funny...

I think I know what DomainWrapper is talking about now... Due to the post structure, it only took me three posts to figure it out....

Basically, if you run a paid or recip only directory, the way someone could get AROUND having to pay for a link or doing a recip is by becoming a member of the site and then putting a link in their profile. One of the fields in the profile of the member is "home page". When you view the Members List, the "home page" url is visible and clickable.

The best thing I can tell you to do is 2 things :

1 - Remove the "Member's List" link from the header of your site.

2 - put a "Disallow: /user_search.php" in your robots.txt.

Its not a perfect solution... but it may solve it for now

[esm]

So after all this, it's about members signup and not links.?.?.?.?

Well, &*#$. Double &*#$.

This is the last time I try to figure out what someone is trying to say. From now on all sentences have to be seven words or less. And monosyllabic.

But if you want to remove something, forget the homepage field. That field is only 100 characters long.

Instead, worry about the biography field. It is a text field which allows you to enter a whole lot of information.



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[Bruceper]

Oh ya, I just love those posts. "It doesn't work, what's wrong?"