Bots?

[Rapeape]

What are these bots? Among other online users I often see these Google(bot)/Yahoo(bot)/Bing(bot) s, which are always written in fat latters as opposed to normal users, and I always wonder what they are...

[bellamyspiano]

I believe it's the likes of Google and Yahoo etc scanning the site for keywords and stuff, for advertising etc etc. Something like that.

[ROBERTS]

Bots are little online softwares sent out to do tasks or gather info automatically. Google has LOTS of bots, watching everything. Most are doing fairly harmless things like gathering stats, but some are acting as "police bots", searching for prohibited, censored, or copyrighted material. Bank billing systems use bots to search adult websites for "non-compliant" content. Basically, bots are cyber spies.

[bellamyspiano]

That's what I meant!

[Rapeape]

@roberts: hm thats most intresting, but do they need passwords to get to certain areas (like this sites members cathegory) or does this software basically hack into these sites? or maybe the sites even give them permission?

@tanya: so your guess was basically right

[Aldranar]

@roberts: hm thats most intresting, but do they need passwords to get to certain areas (like this sites members cathegory) or does this software basically hack into these sites? or maybe the sites even give them permission?

It's part of the phpBB software package. You (the administrator) can enable these bots and give them access to any forum you like (or restrict access, whatever). Their purpose is indeed to scan the forum so more search results will pop up on Google. So it's actually pretty good, as long as they're restricted to the public part.

[Rapeape]

thx for all the answers!

[Sandow]

(Is it just me, or does Bella get cuter all the time? )

As was mentioned, bots don't need passwords because they are indexing the site from the back end, so as long as the admin allows them they have access. I agree it's a good thing. It increases visibility and helps people find information they're searching for. In this case, people wanting to find steamy comics with hot action!

[bellamyspiano]

(Thanks, Name's Tanya btw)

[LoganX]

Yes, bots otherwise known as spiders are good. That's how search engines know how to find the sites with the proper keywords. If anyone found this site by doing a search, it is due to the bots that this site came up in the search.