Yahoo Bot

[BTuckerx2]

Registered users: BTuckerx2, Yahoo [Bot]

The above is on the page after you log in at the bottom stating who is in the room... Does the Yahoo [Bot] mean that I'm being followed or just a bot happened to be scoping the place? Someone let me know how this (bot) thing works...

Thanks
BTucker

[Spock]

There are abut 50 Bots that are registered to browse the website and forum. They are from search engines and help you find things on the Internet. Since they are registered with the forum, I can ensure they have access where I want them to be ... and no access where I don't want them to be.

Basically, if you look at the forum without logging in, that is what the Bots can "see". They are busy indexing our topics and posts in public areas in case there is something there that may be able to help someone.

[BTuckerx2]

Excellent Spock...!! Thank you for the explaination. It makes much more sense now! Bots are not some evil entities looking to destroy and give you unnessary junk/useless mail. BRAVO or YAHOO rather! (Pun intended)

BTucker

[Spock]

... Bots are not some evil entities looking to destroy and give you unnecessary junk/useless mail. ...

Actually, some are which is why I only allow "registered" bots to crawl our forum. Even those are not allowed to see any private user information unless the user is silly enough to publish it in a post. Then it will be rapidly distributed to the entire world!

[BTuckerx2]

Can you give me an example of a "registered" bot?

[Spock]

... an example of a "registered" bot?

If you look at the bottom of the index page, you will see a list of different groups, all with slightly different colors. The only group you cannot list the members for is "Bots" which is in a light purple. Any time you see a username in that color, it is a Bot.

They are "registered" because they are in the list for the Bots group. They don't count as members of the forum. The only priviledge they have on the forum is to search the allowed areas of the forum for key search words.

One such Bot is "SEO Crawler". Most of them have something after their username, usually "[Bot]" but some have other information, such as "[Google]" and some, like the example I gave, have nothing.