Upgrade to vBulletin Forum Software

[David Baxter PhD]

Yes, that's exactly right, ThatLady. These are from the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc., gathering information on pages from the forum to index for the search engines. Threads that are only for registered members, moderators, MVPs, etc., are not accessible to search engine spiders.

 

[ddHopes]

That's good to know cuz alot of forums you see topics by yadda yadda, and can click on it and read it.
Good to know you can't thru google here, though it does bring in traffic????

 

[Halo]

Thanks TL and David.

I guess I was just a little concerned yesterday because when I checked Who's Online I saw one of the "spiders" trying to look at my profile and I just didn't know what a spider was. But obviously they are not members so they cannot view things like that.

Thanks again for the clarification

 

[^^Phoenix^^]

The spiders are bots from Google, MSN, Yahoo and the like. They wander the internet, unmanned, gathering various information. They're really pretty harmless, and generally end up stuck somewhere because they aren't members of the forums. They're confined to those things only a guest can read (at least, that's true on the other VBulletin forum I work, and I'm confident it's true here, as well).

aaaaaaaahhhhh
I saw them too, and thought that there was a person called 'spyder' and that he/she was having internet problems leading him/her to keep logging on or something.
TL - you're a fountin of info, thanks

 

[just mary]

Just wanted to add that some of the best parts of this forum are the "new posts" and "today's posts" features. They remind me of the original forum. I found the predecessor to this forum seemed to take up so much space with listing all the new posts in one thread.

The more I use this version, the better I like it.

Thanks David!

 

[momof5]

wow lots of posts in this since my last notice! LOL

 

[AVC]

Personally, I'm in favor of maintaining a strict limit on signatures, including avatars in signatures. It does really slow down the forums when people have long, or involved, signatures. Not only that, but some people just seem to get carried away and, before long, they've got a book down there.

I think as long as members respect the forum and do not signature spam (post just to garner attention for their signatures) they are fine, it is something that Dr. Dave is aware of for sure, not too many will get away with it here, I can tell you that!

Image signatures should be modest and not look like a billboard cluttering up the threads with large banner type ads, but I don't see that happening here because there are not a lot of kids or people looking to use banners to advertise another website or MySpace pages hanging around this forum!