Question

[CeeGee]

Okay, maybe this is one of those dumb questions.....in the Who's Online box it says "1 Spider online". What the heck is a "Spider"? Should I look for "Miss Muffet"?

 

So far I like what ever it is that happened!

 

Thanks!

[JCK88]

Ok...I'll try to explain this in my limited way because I'm not exactly sure I'm right. Spiders are web crawlers, or program which scans websites by following each link and then generates various information based on the type of search conducted. So if you enter Mrs S through doing a Google search, it may show that a spider is online, because the program was crawling around here and reporting back that yes, this is the place.

 

 

[PoGo]

A Spider is an automated program that "crawls" the world wide web gathering data. A Web Spider is also known as Web Crawler, Web Robot or Web Scutter. Other names used less frequently for Web crawlers are ants, automatic indexers, bots, and worms.

 

The data gathered is mainly used by search engines for providing up to date information, however, spiders can also be used for automating maintenance tasks on a Web site, such as checking links or validating codes. Spiders can also be used to gather specific types of information from Web pages, such as harvesting e-mail addresses for spam.

 

[CeeGee]

Thank you both for your answers. I kinda thought that was what they were, but just wanted to make sure.

[PoGo]

You're welcome CeeGee. (I'm glad that you get to visit MrsS more often now.)

[MomM]

Thanks for asking the question, and for the answers. I was wondering too.

[sassenach]

I am confused, is Red flags gone or is it ............ which forum is it on?

[Leah]

It's in Are You Really Ready?