Spiders?

[wxntrafficfan]

What is up with this whole "spiders" thing? Are they just some random programs that scope out the forums? I've noticed the "Twiceler" spider has been staring at my profile for the past ten minutes.

[Mike M]

They're just search engine bots. They browse throughout the forum so they can add the pages onto their database.

[wxntrafficfan]

That brings up another thing... I don't understand what "bots" are either and how they could possibly be setup. I keep hearing about them in the chat... and users mention that they've made them.

[Mike M]

They call them bots because of the scripts they add into those user accounts in mIRC. It's kinda hard to learn that unless you're talented in coding.

[Anistorm]

Ive always wanted to bring this up. ive noticed that every day or so, a yahoo bot has been looking at my profile, and looking at topics that i made. i find that suspicious... as i may know who could it be... *cough cough*

[Mike M]

How can a user browse a forum under a search engine bot usertitle?

[Zach]

How can a user browse a forum under a search engine bot usertitle?

Probably the IP address of the bot.

[twcclassics]

As Mike said, spiders add pages to their database. They also attach key words to them, based on the content (text) they find. Spiders (generally) only see text. Without spiders, sites wouldn't get indexed by search engines like Google. Not a big deal to you all, but a very big deal to Martin and I.

Bots, on the other hand, generally scrap personal information like email addresses off web pages, so they can be sold to marketing companies. This is one of the ways you get spam.

[Jonathan]

That brings up another thing... I don't understand what "bots" are either and how they could possibly be setup. I keep hearing about them in the chat... and users mention that they've made them.

It's just a matter of you for yourself in most cases. Sorry, but my bot's code is, and always will be, closed-source. Just Google "mIRC script" and work at it.

[TWCToday]

As Mike said, spiders add pages to their database. They also attach key words to them, based on the content (text) they find. Spiders (generally) only see text. Without spiders, sites wouldn't get indexed by search engines like Google. Not a big deal to you all, but a very big deal to Martin and I.

Bots, on the other hand, generally scrap personal information like email addresses off web pages, so they can be sold to marketing companies. This is one of the ways you get spam.

Aaron you are confusing the two. A "bot" on the IRC chat refers to a program called mIRC that can post certain phrases upon a command. ex. if I post !time and a bot was designed to look for that and respond to it, it would. This is not the same as a search engine bot/spider.

Search engines comb this site and all pages as well as user accounts. They can not be assigned to members so I don't know why anyone would worry about that. They are the reason if you search "Kim Perez" a TWCT forum page might show in the results. This is another reason why I changed the forum so topics now are displayed with meaningful urls. Look at the URL of a topic sometime and you will see actual words rather  than something like https://twctodayforums.com/forums/index.php?topic=2780. Makes it much easier for search engines to track which increases hits in the long run.

[Zach]

Martin, I know this is but are you aware that the "more-detailed" URLs have been broken since you upgraded the forum?

[TWCToday]

Martin, I know this is but are you aware that the "more-detailed" URLs have been broken since you upgraded the forum?

Whoa I don't know why we turned that off for so long. WHoops back on