Members Online Now: 8,615 (members: 416, guests: 8,102, robots: 97)

[Eug]

I'm curious. How does AnandTech which users online are robots?

 

[pcslookout]

I'm curious. How does AnandTech which users online are robots?

I would like to know this too!

 

[Crono]

Crawlers and the like might self identify. I doubt it's counting spam bots, which would probably require some database.

 

[Eug]

Crawlers and the like might self identify.

Ah, "friendly" robots? Not the type to generate spam then.

 

[nakedfrog]

Ah, "friendly" robots? Not the type to generate spam then.

Yeah, the ones that get content for search engines. That kind of thing.

 

[Crono]

Looks like they identify by user agent string (makes sense, been able to see bots for a long time even in awstats). Spiders and analytics bots probably make up the bulk.

 

[Eug]

Got up to 99. I had no idea there'd be that many web crawlers on this single forum at a time.

 

[Crono]

Got up to 99. I had no idea there'd be that many web crawlers on this single forum at a time.

More than a few of those would be for advertising and marketing analytics, not just search engines. But yeah there's a considerable amount of automated traffic all over the web.

The Google bot(s) practically live here, given how frequently the search engine updates and caches threads here.

Hi, Google bot! *waves at Google bot*

 

[turtile]

Xenforo lists everything that identifies as one but the majority don't. Usually the number is a lot higher because it's over a 15 minute time period.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Is there a history of when AT was at its peak?

 

[Sonikku]

Robots are taking our jobs... and next they'll be coming after our forum discussions.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Robots are taking our jobs... and next they'll be coming after our forum discussions.

Meh just put a party dress on your avatar.

 

[Rubycon]

http://forums.anandtech.com/robots.txt

Those guys were w-a-y ahead of their time!

 

[sdifox]

I am a robot

 

[Elixer]

Robots are taking our jobs... and next they'll be coming after our forum discussions.

You say that like it is a bad thing... have you seen P&N?

 

[Crono]

You say that like it is a bad thing... have you seen P&N?

I, for one, will gladly service our new robot overlords.

(On the other hand, I also plan on honing my bot hunting skills)

 

[madoka]

I, for one, will gladly service our new robot overlords.

Is this you?

 

[Red Squirrel]

They probably go by user agent or maybe IP range, most web crawlers will identify themselves.

In the early days of Google they had clerks that would just surf the internet all day and manually index web pages. Then all their jobs got taken away by the bots.

 

[RossMAN]

Is there a history of when AT was at its peak?

Dec 5, 2004

 

[R0H1T]

More than a few of those would be for advertising and marketing analytics, not just search engines. But yeah there's a considerable amount of automated traffic all over the web.

The Google bot(s) practically live here, given how frequently the search engine updates and caches threads here.

Hi, Google bot! *waves at Google bot*

Wikipedia bots spent years fighting silent, tiny battles with …

 

[SKORPI0]

Total: 6,598 (members: 267, guests: 6,115, robots: 216)

 

[Thebobo]

Dec 5, 2004

Ahh the 2004s I remember them fondly.

 

[Thebobo]

Yea its amazing how fast a topic here at Anandtech forums shows up on google search.