Bots on the forums?

[caliloo]

Hey Chris

I was cruising the Political Forum this morning and happened to notice at the bottom of the screen there is a line that lists who is currently "browsing the forum". Is the he Google Adsense [Bot] some sort of spyware/malware thingy that you (or we) shold be concerned about? I had never noticed a Bot on the forum before. There was another HF user I recognized browsing too, but I deleted the name to protect their privacy.

Users browsing this forum: caliloo, Google Adsense [Bot] and 0 guests

Thanks

Alex

[whis4ey]

All forums are searched regularly by 'bots'
That is how topics turn up on search engines

[Chris_W]

What do you mean you deleted their name?

If anyone wants to be hidden when they are on the forum just go to:

User Control Panel
Board Preferences
Then under Hide my online status: Choose "yes" and hit submit

Your name won't show up in the users online if you do this.

The "bots" are all over the internet. Some are good, though some are bad. The ones that the forum recognizes are harmless. The google adsense bot reads the topics in order to determine what types of ads to display. However the political forum here is NOT indexed in any search engines.

Hope that helps.

Chris

[caliloo]

I just deleted their name from the quoted line in my post in case they didn't want the entire world to know they were cruising the Political Forum.

And thanks for the explanation.

Alexa