Spiders! They're Everywhere!

[The Perky Ent]

Well, we should all know by now that when you open up the Who's Online, we're not alone. Search programs called "spiders" are around the downs, archiving our site to their search engine. They've always been there, but we're never noticed. Until now. With the recent update in our vBulletin, we have been contacted by these spiders. We are aware of them, and as always, they have been aware of us. Now, the more accurate Who's Online detects the spiders, and considers them guest. There's two different ways of looking at it. Either A, Thanks to the spiders, we've noticed interesting threads that we never knew exsisted, or B, these spiders are ruining our count, and we'll never know our true numbers. What side do you take?

[The Barrow-Wight]

The spiders have been here before (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=10968&highlight=spider) .

What is this? Duplicate topic night?

[The Perky Ent]

Yes, I knew that thread existed. That thread asked about Inktomi Slurp Spiders. I am asking about peoples opinion of weather spiders in general are a gift or a curse.

[Fingolfin II]

I'd definitely go for Option A. Many's been the time that I've found an interesting or unnoticed thread that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. As for 'never knowing our true numbers' doesn't it say how many users and guests are on at the moment in the "Currently Active Users" link?

Currently Active Users: 50 (6 members and 44 guests)

Since spiders are guests, we know both how many users (even hidden users I believe, but they don't show up on Who's Online- just in the count) and spiders are online at the moment, and to calculate how many guests are on that are not spiders simply subtract the number of spiders from the number of guests. So, in my opinion, spiders are wonderful creatures!