There’s money to be earned in running a forum. However, keep in mind that your discussion site can give Internet users an unpleasant impression if it is filled with links to various external sites that are not related to the topics in your forum. They can even be turned off by your focum if there are links leading to sites with pornographic contents.
What is a forum spam
Similar to an email spam, a forum spam contains massages and links that are unwanted or that contain spyware and malware, which could potentially damage your computer or network system. Unlike the email spam, however, a forum spam is posted in a group discussion site. One of the main purposes of forum spam is to lure the Internet users to certain commercial sites to generate more traffic in the said sites. Usually, a forum spam is posted by a spambot or an automated program that is used to send spam. To evade spam filters, some forum spams have texts, though the content is unrelated to the forum.
How can you combat forum spam
Spam prevention can be costly and can actually require a lot of effort on the part of forum administrators. There are actually various ways to combat forum spams. One is through “flood control.” In this way, spambots are prevented from flooding unsolicited massages and links to the forum by making the users wait for intervals before they can post text in the forum. Another method is by using the CAPTCHA. This is a sort of visual test that would ensure that spambots cannot register automatically. The moderator can also block posts that contains “blacklisted” words from entering the forum.