What's A "BOT"?

[ESquared]

Was just perusing the home page, at the bottom of which is a recap of users from the past 24 hours.

It's noted that four "BOTS" have visited during that time (one of which is some sort of special Bot known as a "Spider."

What/who are these "Bots"?

[markiver54]

Good question Evan! Have wondered the same thing.

[Mistered]

'BOT' is an abbreviation (I.E. for ROBOT) for a computer program that can interact or behave like a 'user' on a particular program - such as a forum.
Ever responded to a 'can I help you' chat request on a company website? - if so you have interacted with a 'BOT'.
A 'spider' BOT is one that can search websites in a specific or systematic manner.

[JEBar]

simplified to my level of understanding .. .. they are used by search engines to find locations where certain info can be found .... example : when someone runs a search for Henry rifles, his screen will show him websites where the search engine's bots have found Henry rifles mentioned

[Jdl447]

Nanotechnology

[Lyman]

Google has spiders that crawl websites. They take in info on stuff like content and how many users visit. Websites get ranked and that ranking is reflected on where the site shows up on a web search. Say you do a search on a certain topic. The more the website matches the topic searched for will move it to the top of the results or close to the top.

[Jdl447]

3B210DBE-5574-4AF8-A3ED-2239F5A8201D.jpeg (31.27 KiB) Viewed 3082 times

[ESquared]

So, in a nutshell, we're being spied on, but nothing to worry about!

[Mistered]

So, in a nutshell, we're being spied on,

Not really - your smart phone or Alexa box has that covered much better.

Think of a BOT as an 'artificial' 'human' presence on the WEB.
In the good 'ol days of the internet when chat rooms were the rage is were BOTS got their start.
You posted a chat message and a BOT would respond. If you were not aware of them the responses could seem genuine but if you started to post confusing words or phrases they too would get 'confused' and answer confusingly as well.

Its actually basic computer algorithm - but using word recognition to create a response based on the posters' entry.

You can still see this with the 'Can I help you' chat boxes that pop up on company websites. Auto repair sites are really good for this.

[JEBar]

So, in a nutshell, we're being spied on, but nothing to worry about!

pretty much .... if you want people who may share your interest to know your location, its a good thing .... if you want to keep your site a secrete, not so good of a thing