Spiders and Bots -- Oh my!

[CAmark]

Hi,
I tumbled into the "Users on-line" link and found several user "IDs" listed such as "Google spider" "YAHOO! Slurp Sider" and "MSNbot Spider" shown as viewing various threads within the TM Owners Forum. Can some of you "Web-saavy" users enlighten me about these "bots" and "spiders"? Any need for ?
Thanks,
Mark

[commodor47]

Mark,

What you are seeing is the result of a search engine indexing information (links) on various topics. To my knowledge there is nothing sinister involved nor anything to cause worry. Here is what I found from a quick Web search:

"what is a search engine spider [Web Answer]
A search engine spider is an automated software program used to locate and collect data from web pages for inclusion in a search engine's database and to follow links to find new pages on the World Wide Web."

[CAmark]

Thanks...I imagined something like that but thought that with the knowledge base on this forum someone would know.
mark