Spiders?

[Bungi]

What are they and why does prof keep digging up old threads to talk about them?

EDIT: I mean the electronic kind, not the 8-legged kind

 

[Mirlyn]

What are they and why does prof keep digging up old threads to talk about them?

EDIT: I mean the electronic kind, not the 8-legged kind

Search enginges use special programs that do nothing but click all day. They find pages and catalog them, then open the links on that page, and continue doing so for future reference (for when you use said search engine).

More info: http://www.searchengineworld.com/spiders/

 

[MrBishop]

Take a look at who's online the next time that you are here. A lot of the time, the 'guests' aren't actual people but either spiders or other bots (looking for links, words, phrases, or evil things like email addy's for spammers).

 

[tommyj27]

no they aren't, they're spies for my ho-bot army.

 

[BeardofPants]

It all becomes clear...

 

[catocom]

man, I know The inktomi search engine spider has been
all over my site lately with 5-10 ips there all the time
ranging at (66.196.72.xx), but I guess it's a good thing.