# google spider?????



## Philippa

What/who are the google spiders amongst the guests in 'who's online'?!!


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## badger

Philippa said:
			
		

> What/who are the google spiders amongst the guests in 'who's online'?!!



Hi Philippa.

I think they might be guest's that were directed here through a google search.

This is only a guess.

badg.


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## araceli

Hi:
I just saw that!
?


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## Leopold

I'm not sure either, but i think that's the Google bot indexing the pages.

"Spider. A program that automatically fetches web pages and feeds them to search engines. (It's called a "spider" because it crawls around the web.) Because most web pages contain links to and from other pages, a spider can start almost anywhere. As soon as it recognizes a link to another page, it goes off and fetches it. Large search engines have many spiders working simultaneously. Also known as a crawler."
http://www.google.com/ads/glossary.html
http://www.google.com/bot.html

L.


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## Philippa

Leopold said:
			
		

> I'm not sure either, but i think that's the Google bot indexing the pages.
> 
> "Spider. A program that automatically fetches web pages and feeds them to search engines. (It's called a "spider" because it crawls around the web.) Because most web pages contain links to and from other pages, a spider can start almost anywhere. As soon as it recognizes a link to another page, it goes off and fetches it. Large search engines have many spiders working simultaneously. Also known as a crawler."
> http://www.google.com/ads/glossary.html
> http://www.google.com/bot.html
> 
> L.



I just know I'm going to show an appalling ignorance here, but ......  
Where does the spider 'fetch' things to? To google's site?
Is this how search engines work? I imagined they worked a bit like edit/find, seraching for particular words? Do search engines really need links?


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## Leopold

Not all the search engines work with links. But Google does. You'll find more info int he websites above.
And yes, it fetches thing to the Google server, i think.

L.


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## Tomas Robinson

Ayehhhhhhh!!!    They're crawing all over!!! ¡Es el ataque de las arañas! Now there are about 10 Google spiders, and one from Ask Jeeves just dropped in too...


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## Philippa

Tomas Robinson said:
			
		

> Ayehhhhhhh!!!    They're crawing all over!!! ¡Es el ataque de las arañas! Now there are about 10 Google spiders, and one from Ask Jeeves just dropped in too...


This is how I feel too!!!   Why didn't I notice them before? Perhaps they were hiding under the sofa?!


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## vachecow

I didn't notice them either......I wonder why people who use other search engines don't appear as a msn spider, or an aol spider?


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## vachecow

I wonder if I was once a spider..........


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## Leopold

vachecow121 said:
			
		

> I didn't notice them either......I wonder why people who use other search engines don't appear as a msn spider, or an aol spider?


 Well, because people directed here by the search engines don't appear as Spiders, but as guests. The spiders are not people, but programs. 

 L.


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## vachecow

Oh....thanks....but why does google need more than one spider per site?


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## Leopold

Maybe it's just ONE ubiquitous spider...

L.


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## Tomas Robinson

Leopold said:
			
		

> Maybe it's just ONE ubiquitous spider...L.


Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider, who sat down beside her, and frightened Miss Muffet away.  [an old children's rhyme].

Merry  Christmas!


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## Philippa

Tomas Robinson said:
			
		

> Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider, who sat down beside her, and frightened Miss Muffet away.  [an *old* children's rhyme].
> 
> Merry  Christmas!



It's not that old, Tomas - it's just a nursery rhyme and a current one (I think!)   

I've been thinking about these spiders.... do you think that it's because the forum is bigger now, so more search engines are finding information from here(us!!!) than they were before?

I'm going to have a go at being/making a spider myself!!   I wonder if it will work?


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## vachecow

Philippa said:
			
		

> I've been thinking about these spiders.... do you think that it's because the forum is bigger now, so more search engines are finding information from here(us!!!) than they were before?


I found this site through a search engine......


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## scolls

So did I! 

There will even be more spiders visiting this site, which you may not see directly in the "Who's Online". Only those that the administrator has configured by furnishing how to identify the spider.

For example, a spider I wrote is also crawling these forums from time to time. Would probably show up in the "Who's Online" list as Guest, but it would show by its referrer in the logs and possibly in the stats.

The reason you might see apparently more than one of the same spider simultaneously, is that firstly this board's activity stats are delayed, so that the spider may have downloaded a few pages by the time you see the next "Who's Online" list and secondly because some spiders may download a number of pages simultaneously.

A spider will blend in, so to speak, as it will not hit you more than one page every two or three seconds.


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