You will find this and other scripts mentioned in the post in this archive.

Script which-forum.pl examines the HTML page code to see if it contains signatures of the forum engine. We used a similar technique when defining WordPress and Joomla, but there are a couple of differences. Firstly, the script itself does not load the page code, but reads it from stdin or a file passed as an argument. This allows you to download the page once, for example, using wget, and then run it through several analyzers, if we have more than one. Secondly, in this script the presence of a signature is 100% a sign of the engine. Last time, the presence of a signature only added weight to the corresponding engine and the engine with the greatest weight “won”. I decided that in this case, such an approach would only unnecessarily complicate the code.

To test the script, I did some research. I compiled a list of several thousand forums and ran each of them through my script, thereby determining the percentage of program responses and the popularity of various engines.

To get the list of forums, I used my Google parser. Queries like this were sent to the search engine

site:forum.*.ru
site:talk.*.ru
site:board.*.ru
site:smf.*.ru
site:phpbb.*.ru
....

and so on. You will find the complete query generator code in the file gen-forumsearch-urls.pl. In addition to zone.ru, .su .ua .kz and .by were also used. Last time, it was difficult to conduct such a study, since WordPress and Joomla sites do not have such signatures in the URL. Catalogs like cmsmagazine.ru/catalogue/ do not provide a sufficient sample size. What is 600 Drupal sites?

I must admit, the results of the experiment disappointed me. Of the 12,590 sites studied, the engine was successfully identified on only 7,083, that is, only in 56% of cases. Maybe I didn't take into account some engine? Was it really true that half of the forums had Bitrix installed? Or should I have spent more time searching for signatures? In general, additional research is required here.

Among the 56% of successfully identified engines, the most popular, as expected, were IPB (31%), phpBB (26.6%) and vBulletin (26.5%)

They are followed with a large lag by SMF (5.8%) and DLEForum (5.3%). My favorite punBB was only in 6th place (1.64%). I wouldn’t recommend putting much faith in these numbers (they say that every third forum on the RuNet runs on IPB), but certain conclusions can, of course, be drawn.

For example, if you intend to make a site on a forum engine and plan to modify the forum, say, pay users $0.01 for each message with automatic withdrawal of funds once a week, then you should choose one of the three most popular engines. The more popular the forum, the greater the chances of finding a programmer who is well versed in it.

If no significant changes are expected in the engine, then it may make sense to choose a less popular engine, for example SMF or punBB. This will reduce the number of hacker attacks on your forum and the amount of spam automatically sent on it.

Scripts for searching/identifying forums can also find many practical applications. The first thing that came to my mind was to sort the identified forums by TIC and post on the first hundred posts with links to one of my sites. However, hundreds of forum dofollow links did not affect the TCI in any way (2 updates have passed), so it is better not to waste time here, unless you are not interested in transitions.

It is clear that the mentioned use of scripts is far from the only one. I think you can easily figure out how else you can use them.

Well, let's start giving little tips on optimizing and promoting sites (forums) on phpBB. In this case, we will perform a small hack that will help get rid of an external link like " Powered by phpBB ©...". In this publication we will look at 2 ways in which you can do this - a technique for phpBB 3.x.x.

Removing an external link Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group and Russian phpBB support

The first way to remove an external link that says Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group. And so, the easiest way is to delete using the admin panel. We go to the administrative panel, go to the “Styles” menu item, on the left we see the panel where the block in the menu is located, we are interested in the “Style Components” block, and in it “Templates”. According to the standard, in the proposed window we will see the following: prosilver and subsilver2, although there could be others if you installed them. In general, that's not the point. From the proposed set, select the default one. Click on the "edit" button next to the template. Next, a window appears asking you to “Select a template file.” Next, select “Template file” - “overall_footer.html”. The HTML editor appears below. We find the following code: " Powered by phpBB 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group"and just delete it, although you can set your own link and caption."
(TRANSLATION_INFO) " (which is located below, can also be deleted) - this code is responsible for localization, for example an external link with the inscription "Russian phpBB support".

The second way to remove an external link that says Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group. This method is similar, but we connect to the site via Pratacol ftp. Go to the following path styles/template_name/template/overall_footer.html. And we edit the same code that we edited above. If you change the code, do not forget to set the UTF encoding - this way, “crackers” (squares and other incomprehensible symbols) may appear in place of the anchors.

By selecting a specific topic to view, users are taken to a page with a list of messages in that topic.

Each individual message usually looks like this:

Typically, along the top and bottom of each page, a small menu will appear containing (depending on your forum settings) the following buttons:

• Answer- The most popular button with which users can leave new messages in a topic.
• Notify- Subscribe to receive notifications about new messages in this topic.
• Mark unread- You can mark the current topic as unread.
• Submit this topic- You can forward a link to the current topic to your friend/acquaintance by indicating his e-mail.
• Seal- Create a printed version of the page with the content of the current topic, for viewing before printing.

Typically, the list of messages in a topic is displayed in vertical order: old messages at the top, new ones at the bottom. But each user can set a different, horizontal order in his profile. Then new messages will be placed at the top. Each message in the list is divided into two sections. The left section contains brief information about the author of the message, and the right section contains the message itself.

• Author information
  • Author of the message- Nickname of the user (or guest) who left this message.
  • Signature above the avatar- Depending on the forum settings, users may have pre-created captions over their avatars or can set them themselves. Typically, this signature serves to individually “mark” users.
  • Main group- Most often, all users are in the Normal Users group, the name of which is not displayed. If the group is any other, its name will be displayed in this place. If the author of the message is a guest, a note about this will also be displayed here.
  • Group based on number of messages- Depending on the number of messages left, users are divided into different groups (Newbie, Guest, etc.). The name of this group may not be displayed if the user is a member of a special group or its display is disabled in the settings of the current theme.
  • Emblem- Usually the number of images in the emblem is set depending on the rank of the group (for example, beginners have 1 star, advanced users have three, veterans have five), or they use different images for different groups.
  • Number of messages- Displays the current number of messages of a specific user.
  • Icons for contacting the author- Displaying various icons that help you contact the author of the message in one way or another: link to profile, link to website, ICQ number, e-mail, sending a personal message.
• Message block
  • Message icon- Individual icon selected by the author when creating/sending a message.
  • Message subject- The title of the message usually matches the title of the topic, but at the request of the author of the message it can be changed to any other.
  • Button panel- At the top of each message, in the right corner, a number of buttons are displayed that allow you to perform certain quick actions on the text of the message: quote, edit, delete, etc. (depending on the settings and installed mods). Most often, the “Quote” button is displayed; all other buttons are available only to the author of a specific message, as well as moderators and administrators.
  • date and time- The date and time the message was published is displayed directly below its subject. A warning about subsequent editing of the message will be displayed under its content and above the author's signature.
  • Text- Contents of the message (if there are no messages, then why a forum?)
  • Signature- If the user has specified his signature in his profile, it will be displayed here, under the text of the message.
  • Report to moderator- You can quickly report each specific message to the moderators (for example, complain if swear words are used in the message).
  • Recorded by- A mark indicating that the IP address of the computer used by the user or guest when sending the message is saved in the logs (in the database). For administrators (and for those who are allowed to do so), the IP itself is displayed next to this mark.

While these are the most common message elements when viewing threads, users can hide some of them by editing their profiles.

Long time no love for seobayers so iam writing this tutorial for you guys:

One of the biggest mysteries about xrumer has been creating profiles and me myself being a noob , but a smart one:P, always try to find ways for creating thins easier. Recently i was doing a test and found a good way of generating profile links easily. Before we start i will post results:

Tools- Hrefer 3.3, Xrumer 7.5, Scrapebox, Adword tool for keyword, Keyword studio pro and a linklist merger

Linklist generated- 250k (unique domains)
Profiles generated- 60k (unique domains) - a lot in just 20 days.

Step 1
Generate keywords which people actually try to rank for. This is the most crucial step in profile building. I saw a huge list being shared on another forum which had over 300k words. I say what is the use for searching keywords like "aaaaa", "abra ka dabra" etc. Who will rank for these? So i used common sense and generated keywords which people actually use for ranking.

Usage -
1) Note down atleast 100 keywords from google search (not adwords) which are broad and have massive competition like credit card, insurance etc.

2) One-by-one load these keywords into keyword studio pro (i used crack version:P) and generate similar keywords. Note that these words are better than scrapebox wonderwheel scraper.

3) Load all these keywords into scrapebox and generate keywords upto 3 levels. De-dup them etc. and save them. Then in the end make a huge list of all the keywords generated from original 100 words.

Step 2
Load them into hrefer but before you begin do this:

1) Edit additive words and just use these:

"powered by smf"
"powered by vbulletin"
"powered by phpbb"
"powered by ip.board"

Etc. etc. etc. but only forum software names. I did this so i don"t know which are most useful.

2) Edit search engine filter and place this:

Member.php?action=
profile.php?viewprofile=

Etc. etc. basically all those filters which have view profile in their url.

The logic is to get maximum of those profiles which have been made for the purpose of visible backlinks. (Iam having trouble loggin into my dedi so will post the complete list later)

3) Start scraping and wait for it to complete.

Step 3- Another very important step.

Usually you all just load the links in xrumer and blast away but no you should analyze the database also to remove dead ones. So click on tools -> database analysis

1) Type the same "powered by" stuff into the box on left hand side.

2) Choose your linklist and select search content and 50 threads and go. This will remove all 404 forums and blogs etc.

Now we run xrumer with this linklist.

1) Load the database and setup your project.

2) Goto advanced options -> select register only, goto speed<--->success and move all the way to success and select recaptcha with 40-50 atempts.

3) Start and let it complete.

While the posting is done i usually move to the next keyword building step.

When all your profiles are created, load them into linklist merger and create a big file from it. Now remove dups and all and you have a good profile link package.

So the jist is - keywords which people search - only few additive words and filters - right settings etc.

You will notice that from your final linklist with medium success and recpatcha off and 20-25 atempts for captcha you will get approx 30k+ profiles. I get 60k with recaptcha and half-success

Happy profile creation....

In case anyone doesn't know, Simple Machines Forum - SMF for short - is, as stated on the official website, a free, professional-grade package that will allow you to organize your own online community in a few minutes. on this engine, you can look here. I myself set up my own forum on it (by the way, go to FreeForum.biz).

It doesn't matter how much or little spam appears on your forum. The important thing is that you spend your valuable time on moderation. Setting up a plugin that will do all the work for you takes a few minutes, and it will save you, in total, days and months, which will add up to the minutes you would have spent erasing messages and deleting users.

I will note that I tried to fight spammers on my own - I blocked access via IP and even subnets. It really worked, it filtered out a lot of garbage, but nevertheless, once every one or two days someone made it through. And it took quite a lot of time to replenish the database of banned IPs. I thought there must be a better way, and indeed there was!

1. Installation and configuration of Stop Spammer

In two weeks of operation, this plugin blocked 2202 fake users. Each of them would leave at least one message. The spammers show no signs of slowing down and I would spend time cleaning up my forum every day.

Instead, every few days I go to the user management page and see something like this:

I move on to the “Awaiting approval” section (these are the spammers found who are deprived of the opportunity to leave messages until their accounts are approved by the administrator). I check the “Select all” checkbox and delete them with one click:

That's it, all spam accounts go into oblivion. Let's return to our list of users:

It can be seen that the list has thinned out noticeably, but who are the rest? We select everyone and send them for verification with one button:

One “red” one appears, we immediately delete it. If you have free time, you can do others. If you don’t have time, then don’t do anything with new users - most of them will “blush” during subsequent checks. If you have time, you can go to their profiles and look - if there is a link in the signature, they will immediately be banned, these are fake accounts of spammers who will never leave a single useful message.

I told you how to use this magical plugin, now I will tell you how to install it.

Download two files: language_full.zip (this is the language pack for translating the plugin) and StopSpammer_v2_3_9.zip (the number may be different, as versions are updated). Unpack the contents of the StopSpammer_v2_3_9.zip archive into some folder. Unpack the language_full.zip archive into the same folder and agree to replace the files. Now pack our folder into a zip archive.

In the admin panel, proceed to install packages. Opposite the “Download package” inscription there is a button for selecting a file on your computer. Select our new archive (where we replaced the language file), upload it to the forum and activate the package.

That's it!

Additional configuration of the plugin occurs in the admin panel: go to

Users → Registration → Settings

You can leave the default values ​​there. There is also a field “Your API key”. Without this key, you will not be able to report new spammers (but the plugin will work and filter known spammers). If you want to get your own API key, go to www.stopforumspam.com to register, and then enter the key here. If you have not received the key yet, leave the field blank. Then the default key will be used.

2. Installation and configuration of Anti-Spam Links

Adherents of the SEO religion (you can read more about my attitude towards SEO-nists in another) have a firm conviction that by increasing the number of links to their site, they “promote” it (for some reason the idea of ​​​​creating interesting and high-quality content does not appeal to anyone doesn't come to mind). He would be a sucker, but there would be ways to extract money from him. So, some “citizens” provide services for “running” sites through forums. They create a large number of accounts on different forums and insert backlinks there in signatures and other available fields. Despite the fact that even “SEO experimenters” have already experimentally proven that these links are of zero use, some warn that you can get a ban from search engines for this, Yandex, for example, simply ignores links on ALL forums and sites where anyone can leave links. Google also has similar algorithms - ignoring links in comments, etc. But the law is not written for suckers... Therefore, we, the owners of the forums, have to reckon with the facts that “cool SEO optimizers” order a “run” of their shitty creations for a thousand rubles.

The Stop Spammer plugin will filter out a lot. But we can help him! You can take the very interest of posting links on your forum out from under spammers. This is exactly what Anti-Spam Links are for. This plugin (specific numbers can be changed in the settings) does the following:

• those who, for example, have less than five messages, cannot leave links at all
• those who, for example, have less than 15 messages, cannot leave active links, http:// is removed from links, and in general these links become nubolinks (newbielink)
• those with, for example, less than 50 posts can leave active links, but all links are given a nofollow attribute.
• Well, those who have more than 50 posts can insert the most common active links, which transfer the weight of the site to the page being linked to.

Believe me, would-be SEOs are very careful about the form in which their link ends up on the site. They'll quickly lose interest in your forum if they can't easily post their shitty links to their shitty sites there.

Yes, by the way, the above rules also work in fields such as signatures.

To install this plugin, go to its official page. Download the anti_spam_links_v1.0.1.zip archive (the number may be different). Again in the forum admin, go to install packages (as you did with the previous package) and install it. There is no language file for this package, so there is no need to unpack the archive or do anything with it.

To configure the plugin, go to the section

Configuration → Setting up mods… → Setting up modifications

If you wish, specify how many messages the user must have to upgrade his capabilities.

Conclusion

These two plugins will make your life, the forum owner, VERY much easier and will save a lot of time. However, from time to time spammers break through and, at least once a week, you need to “thin out” users and delete spam messages. Therefore, do not abandon your web resources!