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You are here: PHPJunkyard > Free tutorials > Guestbook spam
Article title: What is guestbook spam and how to stop it
Author: Klemen Stirn
What is guestbook spam?
Guestbook spam is simply a phrase for advertising messages that people
submit in your guestbook. Spammers submit the same message with the link to
their website in numerous guestbooks hoping for some clicks and links indexed by
search engines. You can recognize spam by completely irrelevant, general or promotion
messages always accompanied by URL of a website. Most of the time messages explain
how good your site is, for example:
Sweet page! I think it's cool! Visit my site http://www.??????.??
Informative, low-key, and beautiful! Wow, I am really excited. This will be my first time visiting, but I like it very much!
http://www.???.??/buy-this-and-that
Spammers usually use some kind of software that automatically submits their
messages to hundreds of guestbooks. They never actually open or look at your website,
only the software sends their spam to your guestbook script.
The bottom line is guestbook spam is very annoying and can completely overflow
your guestbook and make it practically unusable (who want's to have their guestbook
full of messages saying buy pills, drugs and stuff?). In fact I know quite a few
webmasters who disabled their guestbook after being spammed again and again and again.
The solution?
Use a guestbook with good anti-spam measures. If your server supports PHP scripts
give the GBook script
from PHP Junkyard a try!
It's free and capable of blocking a ton of spam! The spam combating features include:
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Security image
This is a 5-digit number which changes every time someone wants
to post a message and has to be correctly typed by the person posting the message in
order successfully submit it.
Image 1: GBook security number check
53814 is the number I had to type to post my message. Like I said the security
number changes every time you try to post a message. Using this simple check
GBook prevents automated signups by spam software.
-
JunkMark (TM)
The security image is an effective tool against spam, but it has it's limitations.
If a spammer actually visits your guestbook he/she is still able to get pass it
and submit his/her spam. Some advanced text-recognition programs can even read
the number.
This is where JunkMark (TM) comes in. It's a unique tool designed to additionally
filter the spam that slips through the security image. For obvious reasons I can't
give out any details about how this filter works, but it does the job and it does it good.
-
Disable posting URLs
By default GBook will block any comment that includes website URLs. The philosophy
behind this is simple: the purpose of a guestbook is letting people post a comment
about YOUR website and not invite people to visit THEIR website. Since no URLs can
be posted it will scare away spammers as well.
The URL field can be enabled easily in the settings if you wish to include it
anyway, but leaving it disabled is an effective trick against guestbook spam!
Note that none of the above tricks is completely spam-proof, but a combination
of them gives the best guestbook spam protection currently available!
How effective is GBook at fighting guestbook spam?
This is something I have been asking myself, so I decided to make a little test.
I edited the demo guestbook on my site to log all posts in a special file, even
those who don't pass the security number check. Then I ran the test for 24 hours
(on January 26th, 2006) and the results were astonishing!
Within 24 hours no less than 143 spam messages were blocked!
Yes, if I disabled the security check my demo guestbook would have been "richer"
for 143 messages promoting pills, drugs, adult pictures, casinos, poker sites, ... you name it!
My guestbook would have been a mess by now!
Conclusion
Guestbook spam is a very annoying way of advertising, but with proper filters
it can be reduced to a minimum. If your guestbook is having problems with spam I suggest you
give my PHP
guestbook script GBook a try, it does help! And it's free!
Copyright notice
This tutorial is copyrighted by Klemen Stirn. Obtain permission before copying,
re-publishing or otherwise redistributing this article.
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