XF 1.5 Dealing with spam when thread title is a URL?

[cbpayne]

The only spam that gets through all the spam block thingy's I use are those that use a URL as the thread title
I get up to a dozen posts a day pretty similar to the the screen shot attached. There is no link in the actual post body
I don't want to send all new posts to moderation

Any tips on a way to automatically block URL's as the thread title?

 

[Mike]

There's actually a straightforward way to match this via the spam phrases option. Add this to that:

/^https?:\/\/\S+\n/si

This should match those threads and you can send them to manual approval or reject them. (I'd recommend manual approval at least while you test the change.)

 

[cbpayne]

Thanks Mike; will implement and report back.

Out of curiosity are many other forums getting this spam?
I do not know why they do it. The URL is the thread title, so its not a link back to their site and I see no benefit in it for them. its just damn annoying.

 

[whynot]

I do not know why they do it. The URL is the thread title, so its not a link back to their site and I see no benefit in it for them.

The search engines pick up the thread title first and it stays forever or until changed-deleted.

 

[Marco Famà]

There's actually a straightforward way to match this via the spam phrases option. Add this to that:

/^https?:\/\/\S+\n/si

This should match those threads and you can send them to manual approval or reject them. (I'd recommend manual approval at least while you test the change.)

hey Mike
does this stop also "genuine" threads containing links in the body?

I mean.. what if someone posts a genuine thread with proper subject AND in the body it says something like:

"check my website out:
http://www.acme.com"

?

Would that be rejected?

I have the same issue and would love it to be stopped ONLY if a URL occurs in the subject line..

is it achievable?

thanks
Marco

 

[Mike]

That won't stop a link within a post. It specifically matches the beginning of the string (which is the title if present) and requires a line break afterwards. These will generally not be true of a post (particularly with extra markup for BB code).

 

[tenants]

The begging of the string is not always how these spammers post "links" in the title from what I've seen, and they certainly don't always start with http or even www

For example

 

[Marco Famà]

love it, thanks a lot

 

[upnet]

@Mike, we are using this phrase and it's catching some but not all? First attachment shows trigger log catching one and in moderation, second attachment shows post going through? Most are going through. Any ideas?

 

[todobetas]

There's actually a straightforward way to match this via the spam phrases option. Add this to that:

/^https?:\/\/\S+\n/si

This should match those threads and you can send them to manual approval or reject them. (I'd recommend manual approval at least while you test the change.)

Hi Mike, I Have same problem.

Where do I insert this code?:

/^https?:\/\/\S+\n/si

Thanks

 

[MatthewC]

There's actually a straightforward way to match this via the spam phrases option. Add this to that:

/^https?:\/\/\S+\n/si

This should match those threads and you can send them to manual approval or reject them. (I'd recommend manual approval at least while you test the change.)

I have both /^https?:\/\/\S+\n/si and /^http?:\/\/\S+\n/si as part of my spam phrases yet messages with URLs as topic are still getting through:





What am I doing wrong?

I know this thread is for Xenforo 1.5 and I am using version 2, but I'm assuming this should still apply to version 2?

 

[Cannabis Ape]

Gonna bump this thread as I like to know too and it will serve others.

@MatthewC did you figure it out yet?

 

[jordanwilliams2]

I'd like to know to... The only spam getting through is the URL's in subjects. I've tried adding the http thing but they still come?

/^http?:\/\/\S+\n/si

 

[jordanwilliams2]

bumb?

 

[Snog]

Try

/^http(|s):\/\/\S+\n/si

It works for me.

 

[MatthewC]

@Snog Thanks. I will try that. @Cannabis Ape No, nothing has worked so far.

 

[MatthewC]

I've tried /^http(|s):\/\/\S+\n/si and /^http?:\/\/\S+\n/si and I am still getting spam where the title of the post begins with http. Is /^http(|s):\/\/\S+\n/si working for anyone else?

 

[Snog]

Remove the \n that was my mistake.

/^http(|s):\/\/\S+/si

 

[jordanwilliams2]

I've got these two.

/^http(|s):\/\/\S+\n/si
/^http(|s):\/\/\S+/si

threads with urls are still getting into my website

 

[Snog]

It shouldn't be getting through, especially in the title.



Automatically moderated with that regular expression...





Double check that you don't have registered users able to bypass the spam check..