Bots. How do I stop them from trying to register? (None have got through)

[CinemaDan]

Ok been looking this over for awhile and can not find an answer. I know how to set security settings to high and the captcha. I was just wondering if there was a way to stop the bots from even trying to register. I have never had a bot register. Just try. Like when I go to my page it will say "25 members awaiting approval" I easily just go through and deny them. So, is there a way to have them not even get to that point. So I know everyone who is registering is an actual person?

Thanks in advance!

-CinemaDan

[kat]

Good bots will obey this:

http://www.robotstxt.org

You can scupper a lot of the bad ones, with this:

http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess13.shtml

[Illori]

are you talking about search engine bots or spammers? there are several anti-spam mods that will help, but robots.txt will not with this issue.

[CinemaDan]

Actually not sure. I have a forum and everyday new members are awaiting approval. None are actual people. My site has only been tested with friends and family. So everyone else that is awaiting approval is a bot. Hope that answers the question. Again all the help much appreciated.

[kat]

Why not have a look through these, Dan?

http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?action=search;type=19

See if any catch your eye?

[CinemaDan]

Thanks K!

I did do the javascript one by adding to my htaccess. Seemed easy enough. Not sure how it will help still had a bot try to register in last 10 minutes. Just curious... all the links you just sent me to check out, are they from preventing bots from TRYING to register? As stated in my original post here, I have no problem with bots getting on the site and posting which is a good thing. Just the "awaiting approval" part like they want to if I allow them. It's just annoying. But not ruining my site at all. I would rather just be able to know that all those awaiting approval would be real people. Again thanks so much for the help thus far!

-CinemaDan

[Illori]

if you use any of the anti-spam mods that use a database to compare the users data with they can and will stop the users from registering.

[CinemaDan]

Thanks Illori!

I will look into that. Any favorites you can recommend? I am running 1.1.12 btw.

[Illori]

first upgrade to 1.1.14 and some people find luck with httpbl the honeypot project.

[CinemaDan]

Ok. Will let ya know how it works out! Getting off computer for now. Thanks again!

-CinemaDan

[Angelina Belle]

some of the new retistrations are actually people.

So some of the measures you use to keep out bots won't work.  You'll still get unwanted registrations.

Did the suggestions you read here solve your problem?