Spambots; the one thing all forum Administrators hate.

While they're not essentially harmful to your forum, they can and will post some rather irrelevant topics in irrelevant areas with the sole purpose just to advertise a product. It's annoying, stupid, and if you're running on non-phpBB software it can be a little hard to clean up. However, there's several things you can do in order to keep the spambots away from your forums;

1. Never have the word "forum" in your actual board name. Spambots love this.
2. Always use a captcha. Spambots scan for sites not using them, so it's easy for them to sign up to your site if you're not using protection.
3. Block known spam IP ranges from using your forums. (China, Vietnam and Russia IP's)
4. Delete all spambots account if they manage to get through your protection. This way they won't sign up again as their spamming records show they already have.
5. Show this guide to any staff that are working at your forum. Tell them to do the same!

Most forums which have problems with spambots are ones which don't delete them, because if you don't delete them Google will think you're a link farm and ban you, and the spambots will just continue to pile up on your forum.

So, use all the steps to prevent spambots getting onto your forum, and if they break past your security, delete them immediately.

That way, you will become Spam-Proof in no-time!