I keep getting invitations to conferences that look questionable, but I have never actually attended one. What happens at these conferences in practice? Are they completely fake, or do they actually hold a conference and just provide very little academic value? I am also wondering how a graduate student can tell the difference between a legitimate smaller conference and a predatory one.
What actually happens at a scam or predatory conference?
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They can be real events and still be a bad academic experience. I attended one as a student where there were presentations and a real venue, but hardly anyone came to the sessions. Some of the awards also seemed to be decided before the event. I got some experience from presenting, but there was very little discussion or feedback.
I have seen conferences that are basically a collection of people paying to give a talk. The organizers do not seem very selective, and the program can be a strange mix of unrelated subjects. That does not necessarily mean the meeting literally does not exist. The problem is that you may spend a lot of money and come away with almost nothing academically useful.
One thing that makes these hard to identify is that some of them look surprisingly legitimate online. They may have a hotel venue, a program, photos from previous meetings, keynote speakers, and a professional-looking website. I would check who is actually organizing it, what society or university is behind it, who the speakers are, and whether people in your field recognize the organization.
I would also be careful about the idea that every conference with a low acceptance barrier is a scam. Some legitimate conferences are small, regional, new, or not very prestigious. In some fields, conference presentations are not peer reviewed at all. A weak conference and a predatory conference are not necessarily the same thing.
Look closely at the program. If one organization appears to be running several completely unrelated conferences at the same time and place, that would make me pause. Another warning sign is a program where almost everyone seems to be from the host organization or where there is no obvious community of researchers who normally attend the meeting.
Ask someone who knows your field before paying. A faculty advisor, department colleague, librarian, or researcher who regularly attends conferences may recognize the organization immediately. I once assumed an invitation was a scam because I had never heard of the university involved. After asking someone more experienced, I found out it was a legitimate institution that was simply new to me.
The biggest question for me is what you are getting for the registration and travel cost. If you need a conference for networking, feedback, a CV, or meeting people in your research area, look for evidence that those things actually happen there. A conference can be profitable and still be legitimate, so I would focus less on whether the organizers make money and more on whether the academic community is actually using the meeting.