What are these BOT'S all about?

[SIRUSKEY]

Just had a look on the main page to see who is online and noticed GOOGLE:BOT, MSN :BOT and YAHOO:BOT. What do they do????

 

[oldbloke]

Just guessing from when I did IT security, they're the "spiders" the big search engine companies send out across the web to find things to index, so when you type something into Google/MSN/Yahoo, they know what to offer you.
It's possible for a web server to deny access to robots (assuming the robots play by the rules), but obviously for something you want to appear on Google etc, you let them in.

 

[SIRUSKEY]

Just guessing from when I did IT security, they're the "spiders" the big search engine companies send out across the web to find things to index, so when you type something into Google/MSN/Yahoo, they know what to offer you.
It's possible for a web server to deny access to robots (assuming the robots play by the rules), but obviously for something you want to appear on Google etc, you let them in.

:shock: I HATE SPIDERS

 

[EskiBrew]

Yep - what oldbloke said :thumb:
They index the site for web searches. If you type "brewing forum" or "home brew forum" into google, you will see we are number one :thumb:

 

[luckyeddie]

Without them, you would have never found this site.