Forum

[eaglecap]

My Word Press sites get a lot of new user registrations. I realize that many of them are spam. Yet, they have taken the time to register and they appear in my WP 'users' list.

I took the time to create an email to send to them from my c-panel mailer to invite them to receive a free special report through my auto responder, in order to create a list. To date I haven't gotten any subscribers.

Am I wasting my time? Has anyone else used this method and have you gotten any results?

C.A. Perez

 

[affil96754]

Yet, they have taken the time to register and they appear in my WP 'users' list.

Spammers use bots, automated tools to register with fake emails and post generic comments and can post unlimited comments to thousands of auto approved blogs in a matter of minutes

If you wish to mail them you need to eliminate the spam, admin approve comments or use a captcha
If you do make sure you let them know that the mail is from your site and ask permission to send them mail or you risk being reported for spam

 

[eaglecap]

affil96754,

Thanks for your response, in my naivete I had no idea that bots could do that. I have taken steps to insure that all recipients understand that I am inviting them to be on my list.

Thanks again,

C.A. Perez

 

[evilla.drazen]

There really are a lot of spammers out there. Do be careful. They won't be of any help to you.

 

[esolutions]

Sorry, that really is a waste of time as none of those will be of any value. Setup Akismet spam blocking plugin and almost the only comments that you will see will be from real people.

 

[eaglecap]

esolutions,

That is the curious thing. I have akismet installed and I get very few ( almost none at all) spam comments. But, I do get new users registering every day. I will change my comment settings requiring users to be registered to comment and keep the 'commenters' must provide email address and see if akismet will still keep the spammers away.

C.A. Perez

 

[jonathan_l]

eaglecap:

Ah, welcome to the Internet and its plethora of spammers and their stealthy, yet formidable, armies of bots.

Akismet is very helpful for eliminating comment spam. However, to help reduce your registration spam, it sounds like you need a registration Captcha!

A CAPTCHA (Which stands for 'Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart', because you really wanted to know) is (generally) one of those funny things that looks a little like this:


The reason they exist is because, although bots can easily figure out a registration form, they can't process text in images very well... (yet).

However, the text is generally still just readable enough that a human can still figure it out (alas, the bots are getting ever smarter, so the captchas are getting ever more difficult to read)


I am led to believe the *best* Captcha plugin for Wordpress is reCaptcha, though you may want to flick through Wordpress' plugin lists for a bit to see if there's one you like better.


One thing to be aware of is that a Captcha does add another 'step' to the user registration process, which *could* affect legitimate signups, so be aware. For example, we here at Affilorama have avoided captchas on both our registration and comments to make both as easy as possible, instead opting to have us work just a wee bit harder to clean up any mess.

 

[eaglecap]

Thank you, Jonathan

I suppose if I want human registered I will go the captcha route. Thanks for the info.

C.A. Perez

 

[jmpruitt]

I personally don't allow open registration on my sites except for my membership sites. Even then, I monitor those very closely. Unlsess you have some type of private content for members only, you really should turn off registration on your blogs, which you can do through general settings tab. its as easy as unchecking a box.

 

[eaglecap]

James,

I think I would rather do that than add the captcha.

Carlos

 

[jmpruitt]

yeh, unless you are running a membership site, and have content for registered members only,, there is no reason to allow people to register for your site.

Even my guest posters have to contact me, and I will add them as a member to the site. This keeps spammers from hacking into my site. there are a lot of security issues with wordpress once they are able to register, so its really not worth it to have it open.

even my membership sites have a double opt in to register, so they have to confirm registration before they can access the members area.

 

[rob3]

When I new domain goes live the first visitors I see without fail is a hit from central India and another from China. These guys are selling email addresses and other schemes. They scrape the net constantly and when they spot a new domain with an email, they can grab, they do.