How the heck does that happen?

[Dorign]

So I log in to my forum at 4:48 AM (-6:00 GMT), and there's 1 user (me) and.. 68 guests? On a forum that usually only has 5 or 6 members online at a time..

What causes that? It happens from time to time. All IP addresses are similar, but not the same (ie; #.#.123.12, #.#.122.50, #.#.122.67, etc.).

What.. is that?

[kall]

Search engine Spiders.

Enable the useragent display and you might get a hint.

[Dorign]

It's enabled, mate.

[Tony G]

Then if you go into your who's online page, you'll see the guests are spiders from several search engine sites. ^_^

[Dorign]

I did go into my who's online, and they were all just "Guests."
And yes, it does correctly identify Googlebots, because there's usually one on in the evening. But.. 70 guests at 5 am? That's.. a little extreme.

If it wasn't a popular search engine, I'm guessing it'd have to have been some sort of bug. Unless an unpopular search engine LURVES me.

[kall]

How many spiders do you have identified in the 'Spider String' list in your Whos Online Options of your AdminCP?

You need to have told vB what a spider 'looks like' before it knows whether a guest is one or not.

[Dorign]

Just the ones that come by default, I guess.

[Tony G]

Then those may be ones that aren't identified by vBulletin yet.

Or maybe, just maybe, they were 68 genuine guests.

[kall]

*wags finger at Tony*

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...spider+strings <-- the lists.

[Dorign]

Thank you, Kall! *glares at Tony, sticks tongue out*

Hey, that Kall's pretty helpful for someone who's not a moderator, eh?