Use web service APIs along with these tools and techniques to construct your own hybrid search bots and automate your web data-collection tasks.
by Jeff Heaton
July 11, 2007
bot is a computer program that surfs the web in much the same way as a human user; however, bots are automated. A bot can access a large number of sites much more quickly than a person. You might be surprised at how many uses there are for bots, both good and bad. Some positive uses for bots include:
Researching and gathering information
Keeping search engines up to date
Monitoring web sites looking for bad links and other problems
Unfortunately, bots are also commonly used for less positive purposes, such as:
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bot is a computer program that surfs the web in much the same way as a human user; however, bots are automated. A bot can access a large number of sites much more quickly than a person. You might be surprised at how many uses there are for bots, both good and bad. Some positive uses for bots include:
