Classifieds and Spammers
It seems lately a lot of classifieds sites have been getting hit with spam. For a classified site owner spam can be either someone placing false listings or someone emailing people that have added listings on your site. In the post I am going to talk about email spam instead of fake listings.
First off 68 Classifieds includes several spam prevention measures to help you combat spam. These are captcha, user registration, and private messages. Each of these options have their own positives and negatives and there is probably not one best way for every site.
Captcha systems are more of a deterrent than anything. A real human can get the captcha correct and still send spam. Although most of the time they use bots so they can send hundreds or thousands of messages very quickly. We include by default a captcha system named FreeCap. This system is very basic and because of this I also created a reCaptcha module. The reCaptcha system is supposed to be one of the most secure captcha systems out.
The user registration system in 68 Classifieds is another possible solution. You can force visitors to register on your site and only allow people that have registered to actually contact the listing owners. By going this route you can force email validation and have more details about the person trying to contact someone. For example when someone joins their ip address is logged in their account.
Finally is the private message system. This requires people to be registered users and the emails that are sent just tell the ad owner that they have a new private message. Then they read on your site and can flag it as spam. This has the same drawbacks as allowing only registered users to contact folks. But the benefits are it allows you to have a record everything sent and keeps people coming back to your site to read and reply to the message.
As you can see we offer several ways for you to combat spam and I normally recommend using a captcha system first. If you are still getting spam then go to one of the other methods. Like I mentioned no method is 100% foil proof but you can put measures in place to help.
Site Showcase - Trencherman’s Guide
The Trencherman’s Guide is a collection of the best restaurants and hotels in the South West. All businesses invited to be included in the guide must meet strict quality criteria.
Each year the Trencherman’s Guide committee meet to establish who is to be invited to join the guide and how to provide the consumer with the best information for choosing where to eat out and stay.
This dedication to quality ensures that customers can be confident they will receive the best hospitality experience possible.
v4.1.3 Is Now Released
V4.1.3 is now released and is available from our customers section. This is a bug fix release and fixes all bugs reported to date. You can view the full list of bugs fixed here.
Changes:
Here is a list of changes in this version.
- Added a new date function that will allow you to override the default server date. To adjust the date add this to your language file:
define(’DATE_ADJUST’, ‘+4 hours’); - All other changes are just bug fixes.
Notes:
If you find any bugs please post them to our bug tracker here:
68 Classifieds Issue Tracker
The download is available in our customers area:
68 Classifieds Customers Area
Included in the download is a changelog between the last release and this one. You can also view this in our documentation.
Site Showcase - AutoOutlet
UK based multi-domained site offering free advertising for people wanting to sell their car, van, truck, motorcycle, motorhome, boats and/or aeroplane. » Visit Auto Outlet
Site Showcase - Totally Classifieds
Totallyclassifieds is Queensland’s number one way to sell, buy and swap! Visit TotallyClassifieds
v4.1.2 Is Now Released
V4.1.2 is now released and is available from our customers section. This is a bug fix release and fixes all bugs reported to date. You can view the full list of bugs fixed here.
Changes:
Here is a list of changes in this version.
- Added a new “deepsea” template
- Fixed price bug when entering large prices like 2,500,000.
- Fixed bug in the auto forward feature of checkout
- Added welcome email template to the language file.
- Fixed a few javascript issues with Internet Explorer.
- Fixed a bug in checkout step 3 when short description was not displayed.
New DeepSea Template
This template has a nice clean look. In the future the plans are to make this the default but that will probably not come until 4.2 is released.
Notes:
If you find any bugs please post them to our bug tracker here:
68 Classifieds Issue Tracker
The download is available in our customers area:
68 Classifieds Customers Area
Included in the download is a changelog between the last release and this one. You can also view this in our documentation.
Blog Categories
Search The Site
