Spider Watcher

Spider Watcher
Author: Mikel Beck (mikel.beck@elite-computing.net)

This hack keeps track of the spiders (Search Engine robots) that visit your fourm. Every time a guest visits a page, the guest's IP address, user agent and the page they visited are logged to the database.

When somebody views the spider statistics page, this data is "rolled up", meaning the raw data is collated, the spider's name is determined by comparing the user agent to data contained in the spiders_bulletin.xml file, and the number of pages and visits is summarized and writted back to the database. In addition, and data from non-bots is removed.

The data is then displayed in a easy to read format for your viewing pleasure.

If the user viewing the report has permissions to view IP addresses, these are displayed as well.

A live version of the report from one of my sites can be seen here: http://www.happyhourpub.com/spiders.php

Also see the attached screenshot for an exmaple.


Revision History:
1.0.0 Beta 1 - 01/05/2006
- Initial Release

1.0.0 Beta 2 - 01/06/2006
- Included templates for spiders.php
- Removed text from templates, added them as phrases

1.0.0 Beta 3 - 01/07/2006
- Split up the display of "known" and "unknown" spiders

1.0.0 Beta 4 - 01/25/2006
- Corrected potentional SQL injection issue in plug-in
- Reduced the number of SQL queries required to display statistics
- Corrected date/time display issue

1.0.0 Beta 5 - 02/01/2006
- Reduced the number of SQL queries required to display statistics

1.0.0 Beta 6 - 02/08/2006
- No release

1.0.0 Beta 7 - 02/11/2006
- Corrected issue with "unknown" spiders not being displayed properly.
- Added tracking of the type of spider (searchspider, link checker, etc)

1.0.0 Beta 8 - 02/19/2006
- Change the display of IP addresses to be a pop-up so they're all not displayed on the main page.
- Combined the spiders that have the same name but different user agents.

1.0.0 Beta 9 - 03/10/2006
- Changed the display to group similar spiders together (search spiders, http check spiders, etc)

1.0.0 Beta 10 - 08/08/2006
- Changed how the rollup functions. Instead of rolling up every time somebody views the spider page, it rolls up once per hour.
- Corrected a few bugs here and there, mostly related to removing entries from the database.

Installation Instructions
1. Upload spiders.php to the root of your forum.
2. Upload spiders_rollup.php to the includes/cron directory.
3. Import the file product-spiderwatcher.xml using the Manage Products module.
4. Add a link to spiders.php on your navbar or footer.
5. Add a cron job with the following information:
Title: Spider Watcher Rollup
Day of the Week: *
Day of the Month: *
Hour: *
Minute: 0 - - -
Log entries: Yes
Filename: ./includes/cron/spiders_rollup.php

Upgrade Instructions
1. Upload (and overwrite) spiders to the root of your forum.
2. Upload spiders_rollup.php to the includes/cron directory.
3. Import the file product-spiderwatcher.xml using the Manage Products module. Make sure the "Allow Overwrite" option is set to "Yes".
4. Add a link to spiders.php on your navbar or footer.
5. Add a cron job with the following information:
Title: Spider Watcher Rollup
Day of the Week: *
Day of the Month: *
Hour: *
Minute: 0 - - -
Log entries: Yes
Filename: ./includes/cron/spiders_rollup.php

***UPGRADE NOTE***
When you upgrade from version 1.0.0 Beta 7 to 1.0.0 Beta 8 your existing spider data will be lost!

To make sure that you can decode the maximum amount of spiders, you should grab the latest spiderlist.xml and replace the spiders_vbulletin.xml file in your forumhome/includes/xml/ directory with the one from this thread: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76662

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by mikelbeck

Beta 7 will be ready tomorrow or Friday morning. This version will fix the problem that C Braithwaite uncovered, plus will add the type of spider being identified (search engine spider, link checker, etc)

It was just a fresh install, not an upgrade - glad you figured it out tho - what was the problem?

[mikelbeck]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

It was just a fresh install, not an upgrade - glad you figured it out tho - what was the problem?

It was only saving the last "unknown" spider that it came across, and dumping all the ones before it. ;-)

[Mudvayne]

mikelbeck seems u forget to send us update notification mail .. today is 10th feb.. U updated ur hack on 1st feb

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by Shuvo

mikelbeck seems u forget to send us update notification mail .. today is 10th feb.. U updated ur hack on 1st feb

you can sign up for notification mail? how?

[Mudvayne]

Originally Posted by C Braithwaite

you can sign up for notification mail? how?

u don need to signup for notification :S.. If u clickes install then after an update if coder clk the update button or something like this.. a mail has been sent to u automatically.. u just hav to click the install button

[C Braithwaite]

Originally Posted by Shuvo

u don need to signup for notification :S.. If u clickes install then after an update if coder clk the update button or something like this.. a mail has been sent to u automatically.. u just hav to click the install button

ahh rite cool ^^ already done ^^

[mikelbeck]

Originally Posted by Shuvo

mikelbeck seems u forget to send us update notification mail .. today is 10th feb.. U updated ur hack on 1st feb

Shuvo -

I did send an update when I updated the release information. Maybe you forgot to receive it? ;-)

I dunno, maybe there was an issue with it being sent from here. Whenever I post an update I also post a reply on this thread, so hopefully you would get a notification from this topic.

[Mudvayne]

ahh its ok.. thnx.. may b vb.org's mail server prob or accidently i delete it before chk..

[Zia]

:O friday :O

where is the new update release beta7 ???

[mikelbeck]

New version available...

This is an "interim" release, it just fixes the two items listed below. Other functionality will be in Beta 8, coming in the next couple of days.

1.0.0 Beta 7 - 02/11/2006
- Corrected issue with "unknown" spiders not being displayed properly.
- Added tracking of the type of spider (searchspider, link checker, etc)