Is there a way to fake users browing a specific category?

[ZUCCO]

I mean not the forum stats but a specific subforum like showing (100 users viewing).

I dont want to use it because my forum is growing but Ive seen some forums who have 240 users viewing a subforum but none of them post or even commnet. It is a dead forum

[ozzy47]

Are you sure it is not spiders viewing that page?

[ZUCCO]

Originally Posted by ozzy47

Are you sure it is not spiders viewing that page?

I dont know , maybe they created them or it is a plugin o vb

and why people use them

[ozzy47]

I do not recall seeing such a mod, I would have to believe it is spiders viewing it. IMO it would be silly to show 100 users viewing a thread, and only 3 people logged into the forum forum stats.

[Max Taxable]

It's not unusual to see dozens of spiders on a specific topic or even a subforum. Baidu is particularly prone to do that.

[ZUCCO]

Originally Posted by ozzy47

I do not recall seeing such a mod, I would have to believe it is spiders viewing it. IMO it would be silly to show 100 users viewing a thread, and only 3 people logged into the forum forum stats.

maybe, but sometimes they have 300 spiders :O

[ozzy47]

Here is the current stats from this site:
Currently Active Users: 648 (44 members and 604 guests)

Here is what is viewing vB4 mods:

vBulletin 4.x Add-ons (136 Viewing)

As you can see the numbers can become inflated easily.

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by papanoelxd

maybe, but sometimes they have 300 spiders :O

Baidu is a particularly nasty crawler that ignores robots.txt and is known to bombard forums with hundreds of hits at a time.

That's why alot of people block it, using Simon Lloyd's "Ban Spiders by User Agent" mod.

[Simon Lloyd]

Originally Posted by papanoelxd

I mean not the forum stats but a specific subforum like showing (100 users viewing).

I dont want to use it because my forum is growing but Ive seen some forums who have 240 users viewing a subforum but none of them post or even commnet. It is a dead forum

Thats one of your settings in admincp, the viewers are not separated so the 100 will be made up of bots/spiders and real users and they dont have to be logged in for that stat to show them viewing, i think it's with the option to show who's viewing a forum.

You can change it in phrases $vbphrase[x_viewing] or change it in:
forumhome_forumbit_level1_post and remove
<if condition="$show['browsers']"><span class="smallfont">(<phrase 1="$forum[browsers]">$vbphrase[x_viewing]</phrase>)</span></if>
And the same in forumhome_forumbit_level2_post.

[Digital Jedi]

There are mods that fake online users, but they fake...online users. Not just the view count without any usernames. The number of spiders on a site can be ridiculously, needlessly high. Which is why you sometimes have to ban them.