Fight spam
Every tool Yclas gives you against spam listings, fake accounts and junk messages, and a sensible setup to start with.
Every marketplace attracts spam sooner or later: fake “loan offers” and “spell casters”, bots that sign up by the hundred, and messages to your sellers that are really phishing. A few listings like that make a site look abandoned, so it’s worth setting up your defences early.
Yclas has several layers of protection. None is perfect alone; together they stop almost everything.
A good starting setup
If you do nothing else, do this:
| Step | Where | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Keep Captcha on (it is on new sites), and ideally switch to reCAPTCHA. | Listings › Settings and Integrations › reCaptcha | reCAPTCHA |
| Keep the Black list add-on on (it is on new sites). | Addons › Black list | Black list and banned words |
| Add an Akismet key. | Integrations › Akismet | below |
| Turn on User Must Verify Email. | Settings › General, Sign-ups | Sign-up and login settings |
| If spam still gets through, approve listings before they go live. | Settings › General, How new listings go live | Moderation |
Every tool, and what it stops
Stop bots at the door
- Captcha and reCAPTCHA — a challenge on the forms bots love: posting a listing, signing up, contact forms, reviews, forum posts and the newsletter sign-up. See reCAPTCHA.
- Hidden trap fields — the sign-up and contact forms include a field people never see. Bots fill it in and are quietly turned away. This is automatic.
- Email checks — new accounts must use an address whose domain can receive mail; with the Black list on, throwaway addresses from disposable-email services are refused. You can also require email confirmation, allow only certain domains, block others and block subdomain addresses. See Sign-up and login settings.
Catch spam in what people write
- Akismet — sends new listings, contact messages and forum posts to Akismet’s spam filter. Anything it flags is refused. When a new listing is flagged and the Black list is on, its poster is also marked as a spammer.
- Banned words — reject or mask listings that contain words you choose, such as “western union” or “casino”. See Black list and banned words.
- Moderation — nothing goes live until you or a moderator approves it. The most reliable filter, at the cost of your time. See Moderation.
Slow spammers down
- Require Login to Post and Limit published listings per day, in Listings › Settings, make mass-posting much harder. See Publishing options.
- Require Login to Contact stops anonymous messages to your sellers.
- Login limits block an account for a while after repeated wrong passwords. See Sign-up and login settings.
Deal with spammers who got through
- Mark as spam — on a listing in All listings, or on the member in Users. The member is signed out and, with the Black list on, their email address can’t post or send messages again. See Black list and banned words.
- Report this listing — let members flag suspicious listings to you. See Reported listings.
- Fraud checks on payments — FraudLabs Pro screens card payments. See Other integrations.
Public profiles of members without any listings are hidden from search engines automatically, so accounts created only to place links on your site get no benefit from it.
Set up Akismet
Akismet is a spam filter run by Automattic, the company behind WordPress. It’s free for personal sites and paid for commercial ones.
- Get an API key at akismet.com.
- In the admin panel, go to Integrations and open Akismet.
- Paste the key into API key and click Save.
To switch Akismet off, empty the field and click Save.
Akismet sometimes flags genuine posts. If a member says their listing is refused as spam (“This post has been considered as spam!”), check whether they were marked as spam in Users, restore them, and consider moderation instead for that kind of content.
Cleaning up after a spam attack
- In Users, open the Spam and Unconfirmed tabs and sort by Newest to see the latest fake accounts.
- Delete the accounts you’re sure about. Deleting removes their listings too.
- In All listings, search for the spammers’ typical words and mark what’s left as spam.
- Add those words to Banned Words, and switch on the tools from the starting setup above that you hadn’t yet.
Related guides
- reCAPTCHA — the strongest bot check.
- Black list and banned words — block repeat offenders and spammy words.
- Moderation — approve listings before they go live.
- Help your members avoid scams — advice to share with buyers and sellers.
Updated 7 October 2026 · Suggest an edit