Spam is one of the major problems that most hotel website owners face on regular basis. It is a bad practice used by spammers to persuade the page rank of a site. This practice should be prevented, but unfortunately, there are numerous spammers who use these techniques and even spreading their control to other web portals through several ill and misleading ways.
These are the spiders who visit your site with a purpose of collect information different from legitimate needs. In order to protect your hotel website from these spammers, you have to fight back by understanding their methods of getting your information.
Keep your Website Updated: If you use any software like CMS or forum etc., it is imperative to install updates as they become available. The makers of these applications often find and fix security holes that will leave your web portal susceptible to attack.
Beware with User Uploads: Allowing web users to upload any information to your site like image or other file can add interactivity; it also permits a way for malicious scripts to be uploaded to your server. Your website should have security measures to check if submitted items from the web users are safe or not before uploading them to your website server.
Protect your hotel web forms: It is very easy for spammers to fill out a contact form and place spiteful codes into the name, contact or email fields. You should review your website on a regular basis to protect it from leaving these opportunities open to spammers.
Beware of error messages: If someone is trying to log in with incorrect username or password, your site must showcase a generic error message that reads, "Wrong username or password." This is vital to prevent spammers to get any clue to guessing the login credentials of generic users.
Use strong password and username: Though many hotel owners are learning the significance of strong username and passwords, some still use very simple or easy to guess usernames and password like admin or password123. In fact, some hotel owners use same password for every online account they have. You should always use numbers, special characters, and capital letters for your username and password use long sentence as they are harder to expose, and thus aid in optimizing security.
Spam Filter: Spam filters are the best solution to avert spam attacks. They work by blocking spam messages at the server end itself. These filter tools can be used for any operating system and processor that holds normal Internet protocols. You should always use spam filters to protect your web forms and emails from spam.
Add control point like CAPTCHA: CAPTCHA is one of the most popular and effective methods to block spamming. In this scheme, an image of text string is displayed over the web form to be submitted. Web users who are trying to fill a form, have to type that code on a textbox to pass through that process. Luckily, it is not possible for automated spam programs to read CAPTCHA code without the use of premium quality Optical Charter Reader. Consequently, it helps in preventing spamming.
Most of the spammers do spamming for money or competition. However, there are people who spam websites just for fun. You may never know their motives, but you can do a lot to stop them.