Forum Robots?

[jsk29]

On the right hand side there's the tab 'Fastlaners Online Now'.

Near the bottom, there's a Total showing (members: 78, guests: 310, robots: 119)

My question is, what/who are the robots? And what purpose do they serve?

My guesses are:

- 'SEO research robots' that search forums related to keywords inputted by the owner and it collects data from posts on relevant topics

- 'Fake user robots' that create accounts on forums and spam offers related to the forum's niche

- 'Analytics robots' that collect traffic and usage data on popular forums for some type of use

I tried a google search but all I got was robotics forums.

Just curious

 

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[GuestUser155]

Usually analytics and web-crawlers. Fake user bots are just users.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Yup, mostly search engine bots, spam bots, analytics, scraping stuff.

 

[juan917]

I wonder how the servers can detect that it's a bot

 

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[Tiger TT]

I wonder how the servers can detect that it's a bot

It's very easy. Every real user sends a "header" to the server. To take a look at yours, check this out:

http://www.whatsmyua.com/

If it's a legit bot, then you will see the name of the bot. If it's a bad bot, then you will see weird stuff, it will be emtpy or it will look legit and only a security expert will be able to understand it. Also if it's a real user, then usually javascript will be enabled. Bots usually don't have javascript enabled.

In the future javascript probably won't be an issue for most bots.

 

[Fox]

I didn't know what thread to bounce - I have been having forum issues all morning...

 

[Ninjakid]

beware everyone. The robots are coming.

 

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