Do Forums Have Tracking Methods To Stop You From Having More Than One Account?

[Cash Builder]

When registering accounts on forums for traffic leaking purposes, do they track your ip address? If I register 2 or 3 accounts in the space of a week all from the same ip address, will this be a problem? I was thinking about using a VPN, but then every time I log into the forum I will have a different IP which could be another red flag. Or am I overthinking this?

Also, what email provider is best for creating lots of accounts? Gmail and Outlook require a mobile number for verification. I found mail.com and GMX, are those any good?

 

[DanielS]

When registering accounts on forums for traffic leaking purposes, do they track your ip address? If I register 2 or 3 accounts in the space of a week all from the same ip address, will this be a problem? I was thinking about using a VPN, but then every time I log into the forum I will have a different IP which could be another red flag. Or am I overthinking this?

The smart forums track IP addresses, but I would imagine many forums don't pay much attention. HOWEVER, it's still much safer to use a different IP address for each separate account to make the accounts look like they're owned by different people. The last thing you want to do is create a chain that can be followed because like with the big social media platforms, you might wake up and find out not 1, but 3 of your accounts have all been banned.

As far as using a VPN goes, just make sure you disconnect from the VPN when you go to sign in on your main account which was created using your personal IP address.

Also, what email provider is best for creating lots of accounts? Gmail and Outlook require a mobile number for verification. I found mail.com and GMX, are those any good?

I think the 2 providers you mentioned are probably the best options. There is mail.ru and rediffmail but many mass-account creators use these platforms so they're typically less trusted.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Most forums may collect this data but the owners never consult the data unless they see something funny going on. Most forums don't care if you have more than one account, even if they're aware of it, as long as you aren't doing anything fishy.

But it depends on how sophisticated the forum owner is, the forum software is, and the level of effort going into catching spammers and manipulators. If it's set up well, you can cross reference data to figure it out. If it's set up really well, you can find out which accounts belong to the same users with the push of a button. If it's set up super well, you'll get alerts when these things happen and can even block them from occurring in the moment automatically.

But I think you're going to find in 99% of the cases you'll have zero problems even using the same IP address. Most of the time you don't even need a ton of email addresses. You can use modifiers and catch-all addresses, like (and I don't remember if this is exactly how it works) email+123@gmail.com and email+tag@gmail.com and email+anythingPastThePlusGetsIgnored@gmail.com.

The main trick is to prime accounts so the people looking for abuse have dropped their defenses and aren't on the war path.

 

[Cash Builder]

So I imagine the biggest forums will have the best software to track this type of thing, but even then they won’t do anything unless they need to.

I was planning on targeting only huge forums so there is more chance of decent traffic, but I’ll mix in a few smaller ones to get a feel for how they work.

I guess I doesn’t really matter because if my account gets banned and my ip flagged, I can always set up another account using a vpn. I just don’t want to spend time warming up an account only to get blocked before dropping a link.

 

[CCarter]

Yeah mates, also a lot of software like SAASes utilize things like StopForumSpam.com and KickBox.io. For example, I use both stopforumspam.com and kickbox.io to not allow users from signing up to SERPWoo with a temporary email cause that shit clogs up our pipes. Anyone signing up with a temporary email never becomes a paid user (cross-referenced IP Address of new paid accounts), so it's a waste of time traffic.

The Kickbox.io API is free for disposable email domain look up:

So all a smarter forum owner needs to do is connect kickbox.io and the stopforumspam.com API and you've got yourself a spam free database of users.

 

[secretagentdad]

Kick box is awesome. Surprised I haven't seen that before. You know of any that are more aggressive? I’m looking for mass black listing and fancy rules based blocking for conversion funnel protection.


For gaming, which is a bit of a nastier level of arms race, I’ve resorted to in person sign up for my latest game.


Also Op seriously consider just being really genuine and you won’t need the stupid sock puppets. It’s a way better use of your time and societies resources. I hate competing against you pr hydra types.