I took the decision the other day to relax the registration process making it so new users would have to validate their email address instead of an admin having to approve accounts.

I had started admin approving a while ago when we were getting unsuitable spam posts so that I could control registrations.

Unfortunatly due to misuse I have been forced to revert back to admin approving ALL registrations.

Thanks to millsy for letting me know about the offending posts. The posts and users responsible have been deleted.

I think the problem with spamming comes from us useing a free forum host service so I will be looking for options. If you can provide us with any free hosting, please let me know. One option that is definatl avaliable is the one to close the site down completely and that I don't want to do. I started Scout Forum up about 6 years ago.

It's nothing really to do with using a free host... once search engines know your website it'll happen regardless... the only way you can try and get round it is using a robots file but you have to be hosting the forums yourself to do this...

Not to sure, the problem only started here when we got up to a number of registered users.

I am thinking about moving the forums to its own hosting, but obviously it will cost money, and one of our core values from when I set this up was that it the site would not charge people to join, or cost any money to run.

One option I do have is to set up a web design company and host the site for free through that.

Do you want to be a blogger Julies?

The issue shouldn't be related to how many users you have.

As for hosting these guys are pretty reliable, i've used them on a couple of websites i've deisgned for people - http://www.hostfor99p.co.uk/

The problem you have if moving to private hosting is you wont be using the core Invision Powerboard Forum Software, and some which are open source have massive security holes in them...