Exactly what are these 11 bots i'm seeing browsing the forums?
 

They all seem to be browsing user profiles too. Most are from Yahoo but some are from google. I know that search engines routinely archive new posts to add to their engines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Slurp) but it seems they're more interested in user profiles than the forums themselves. Email addresses for spamming maybe?

Look here btw http://www.ironworksforum.com/forum/online.php

Scroll down to where it lists who's online, and then click current users.

Re: Exactly what are these 11 bots i'm seeing browsing the forums?
 

Thats kinda wierd.

Re: Exactly what are these 11 bots i'm seeing browsing the forums?
 

It's fallen to 1 atm, when I posted there was 11 and 10 of them were browsing profiles, with that single one searching the forums.

Re: Exactly what are these 11 bots i'm seeing browsing the forums?
 

We had some 60-70 of them not too long ago.

Re: Exactly what are these 11 bots i'm seeing browsing the forums?
 

I know I was on last night with around 40 searching...

Re: Exactly what are these 11 bots i'm seeing browsing the forums?
 

They are just keyword bot spidering the site. Since the URL is new, it detected it, and now is hitting all new possible links. It's normal, NO ONE can get your email address, as they are hidden.

Re: Exactly what are these 11 bots i'm seeing browsing the forums?
 

Well that's quite the relief. Thanks for the clearing-of-up :D

Re: Exactly what are these 11 bots i'm seeing browsing the forums?
 

I've never understood why they call them spiders though, it almost insinuates something sinister. Atleast I wont get any more spam, I hav enough already.

Re: Exactly what are these 11 bots i'm seeing browsing the forums?
 

They're called spinders because they move on a web.