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

[Zia]

getting an final release is always nice ..
i think this addon's..modification will never be end

can u give a thought to reduce sql-query? in our sites list page it giving 268 query...
any way to reduce the query?

Page generated in 1.38554 seconds with 268 queries

errrrrrrrrr....one more thing..maybe its out of the topic.....but cant stop my- self :nervous:

asking about RSS, hence current Show Spider On Forum Home hack dont work on portal home..if rss works on only the spiders name..that visited (today or all over) can be shown on portal home .if u are willing to do THIS Rrss icon in each forum
might provide some idea...

if possible plz give a thought on it....

thanx

[SIINSI]

I installed this a few weeks ago and it worked fine. Now when I try to access the page, it just hangs... any clues?

Thanks.

[mikelbeck]

Originally Posted by SIINSI

I installed this a few weeks ago and it worked fine. Now when I try to access the page, it just hangs... any clues?

Thanks.

What version do you have installed? Is it an active site, with a lot of spider activity?

[SIINSI]

Originally Posted by mikelbeck

What version do you have installed? Is it an active site, with a lot of spider activity?

Looks as though I am using Beta 7. My site is very active with alot of Spider activity. Does this mean the script won't do well for me?

Thanks for the quick response!

[mikelbeck]

Originally Posted by SIINSI

Looks as though I am using Beta 7. My site is very active with alot of Spider activity. Does this mean the script won't do well for me?

Thanks for the quick response!

If you've got a lot of spider activity, it's going to take a little longer to collate it and display it. Once that's done, however, the page should load quicker.

The next version has some more reduction in the number of queries and should help with this situation.

[SIINSI]

I let the page sit for an hour and it didn't do anything but, cause alot of server load

[mikelbeck]

Version 1.0.0 Beta 9 is now available.

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

[Mudvayne]

Updated .. !seen Zia :P.. Newayz thnx Mikelbeck..

[XtremeOffroad]

thanx fot the update, argh all the activity is gone now. but thanks again

[nitro]

Updated seems ok

Think I would prefer a popup window that can be used like being able to copy the IP this would make it easier to add the bots ip to a banned IP list if you didnt want it on your site and it was ignoring robot.txt.

Another little suggestion the Bot name could be a link to a search engine so you can quickly access links about a bot and its origins and behaviour.