Bogus Registrations

[webdude]

Hi all,

I rarely come to this part of Webmaster World, but I need some advice.

I have a forum that is growing pretty well. It currently has over 5000 users. The problem is all the bogus registrations I get. I coded it so I receive an email with every registration. I also added an email response to activate the registration hoping this would help. It actually seemed to have made it worse! I don't get it. About 1 in every 5 registrations are legitimate. The others are just nonsense user names or porn stuff.

The path of registration is...

user fills out form
I get an email of the registration
user gets an email with link to verify registration

Is there a way to cut down on the bogus registrations? I was thinking of making a random number fill-in (I had to do this in my directory), but I really would like the registration process as easy as possible for the sake of garnering new users.

Thanks!

[maximillianos]

The easiest solution is to make your link to the registration form a link created by javascript. Bots rarely follow or decode javascript, so they will ignore your registration form.

A "over paranoid" example:

<script>
function register(){
 document.location="/register.php";
}
document.write('<a href="javascript:register();">Register</a>');
</script>