This page is about advertisement spam. For vandalism spam, see Help:Vandalism.

Spam is unwanted advertisements and links to other websites.

What to do if you find spam?

• Remove the link or revert the edit in which it was added, and block the account that added it if they persist.
• You should also contact the Spam Obliteration and Prevention team so the spammer can be globally blocked. The SOAP team can also assist with a swift cleanup of the unwanted advertising edits.

How does Fandom fight spam?

Fandom uses a number of tools that are built into the software to help us fight spam:

• Phalanx, an integrated spam defense tool, prevents certain actions against an integrated blocklist. All users can suggest additions to this list through the SOAP Wiki.
  • Blocking of spammers across all wikis (global blocks).
  • Filtering commonly spammed phrases used in article text or edit summaries can be added to the article filter using regular expressions.
  • Filtering commonly used spammed titles can be added to the same article filter to prevent their recreation.
  • Filtering commonly used wiki subdomains used by cross-wiki spambots.
• Captchas for external links added by unregistered users and for account creation.
• "LookupContribs" which allows Fandom Staff, Wiki Specialists, SOAP, and certain users to check for edits by a particular IP address across all wikis.
• "MultiLookup" which allows Staff, Wiki Specialists, SOAP, and certain users to check for edits by a particular user across all wikis.
• Nofollow links are added to all external URLs. See the Google blog for details.
• Old revisions of articles are not indexed by search engines.
• A tool for searching for spammers using multiple usernames (Help:CheckUser).
• Bots using algorithms that run against an IRC feed of all recent changes to automatically detect spam.
• A tool to mass delete page titles created by spammers (Special:MultiDelete).
• Automated deletion of all pages by an IP/User on a specific wiki (Special:Nuke).
• One-click reverting for local admins and users who have been assigned "rollback" status.
• "Protect site" for the most severe cases of spam attacks allowing Fandom staff, Wiki Specialists, and SOAP, as well as some local administrators, to temporarily lock down the wiki against uploads, account creations, or edits by unregistered or all users.

What types of spam exist and how do we deal with them?

Spam articles

Where the aim is to promote a particular company rather than to provide useful content to readers of the wiki; these should be rewritten or deleted.

External link spamming

Often carried out by robots that may be spamming many wikis at once. Their aim is to improve their search engine rankings rather than to directly advertise their product.

If you find such spam, please report it to the SOAP team with as many useful links as possible.

Additionally, if you are an admin on the wiki being spammed, you can block the user or IP doing the spamming if required.

What is the spam filter message?

The following message will be displayed when you try to save a page that contains a specific string or a URL in the blocklist.

See also

• Read more about spam captcha.

Further help and feedback

• Browse and search other help pages at Help:Contents
• Check Fandom Community Central for sources of further help and support
• Check Contacting Fandom for how to report any errors or unclear steps in this article