The terms web crawler, automatic indexers, bots, worms, web spiders, and web robots are programs or automated scripts with browse the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. The term web crawler is the most commonly used term.
Web crawlers are a tool used for search engine optimization.
Search engines use web crawlers to provide up to date data and information. Web crawlers provide the requested information by creating copies of web pages that the search engine later processes. Once the information has been processed the search engines indexes the pages and are able to quickly download the pages during a search. The process of web crawling is a key factor in search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages attractive to search engines. Computer people call the process of using a web crawler to rank a website spidering.
Some search engines use web crawlers for maintenance tasks. Web crawlers can also be used for harvesting e-mail addresses. The internet is a gaping ocean of information. In 2000, Lawrence and Giles manufactured a study that indicated the internet search engines have only indexed approximately sixteen percent of the Web. Web crawlers are designed to only download a tiny amount of the available pages. A miniscule sample of what the internet has to offer.
Search engines use web crawlers because they can fetch and sort data faster than a human could ever hope to. In an effort to maximize the download speed while decreasing the amount of times a webpage is repeated search engines use parallel web crawlers. Parallel web crawlers require a policy for reassigning new URLs. There are two ways to assign URLs. A dynamic assignment is what happens when a web crawler assigns a new URL dynamically. If there is a fixed rule stated from the beginning of the crawl that defines how to assign new URLs to the crawls it is called static assignment.
In order to operate at peak efficiency web crawlers have to have a highly optimized architecture.
URL nominalization is the process of modifying and standardizing a URL in a consistent manner. URL nomalization is sometimes called URL canonicalzation. Web crawlers usually use URL nomilization to avoid multiple crawling of a source.
In an attempt to attract the attention of web crawlers, and subsequently highly ranked, webmasters are constantly redesigning their websites. Many webmasters rely on key word searches. Web crawlers look for the location of keywords, the amount of keywords, and links.
If you are in the process of creating a website try to avoid frames. Some search engines have web crawlers that can not follow frames. Another thing some search engine are unable to read are pages via CGI or database -delivery, if possible try creating static pages and save the database for updates. Symbols in the URL can also confuse web crawlers. You can have the best website in the world and if a web crawler can't read it probably won't get the recognition and ranking it deserves.
On October 15, 1881 a baby by the name of Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (Plum to his friends) was born. In 1996, one hundred and fifteen years later, a brand new internet search engine would be named in honor of him, sort of.
P.G. Wodehouse was an extremely popular English writer who had a flair for comedy. Magazines like The Saturday Evening Post and The Strand serialized his novels while he spent time in Hollywood working as a screenwriter. P.G. Wodehouse had an incredibly prolific flair for writing. His writing career officially started in 1902 and ended in 1975. During that time he wrote ninety-six books, several collections of short stories, screenplays, and one musical.
When he was ninety-three years old, P.G. Wodehouse was made a Knight of the British Empire. Two of Mr. Wodehouse's most famous characters(or perhaps infamous, depending on your point of view), are the bumbling Bertie Wooster and his long suffering valet, Jeeves.
P.G. Wodehouse will always be remembered for his comedic approach to writing.
In 1996, when Garret Gruener and David Warthen needed a name for the internet search engine they created they choose the name of Wodehouse's fictional valet. The website was called Ask Jeeves. Jeeves remained the search engines mascot until the company retired him on February 27, 2006 a decision they announced on September 23, 2005. Jeeves retirement prompted the internet search engine to create a page titled "Where's Jeeves", that listed a variety of creative activities, including growing grapes and space exploration, the valet planned to do during his retirement. With Jeeves retired the search engine simply became Ask.com. During his reign at Ask Jeeves, the valet was always impeccably dressed in a beautifully tailored black suit, shiny shoes, and red tie. Although his posture changed almost yearly on the company logo he always had the same amicable smile.
When it was first created the idea behind Ask.com (back then it was still Ask Jeeves) questions would be posed in regular language and answers would be hunted down and provided. The creators of Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com) hoped that internet users would be drawn to the intuitive, user friendly style.
The growing popularity of keyword search engines like Yahoo! and Google prompted the powers-that-be at Ask Jeeves to overhaul their search engine to include keyword searches in addition to answering questions. Because Ask.com was not as quick to index new websites as some of its competitors its was not bogged down with computer generated linkspam., when users were unable to find usable web pages on the three most popular internet search engines, they turned to Ask.com who still had viable pages readily available.
Today, Ask.com uses the ExpertRank algorithm to provide its users with search results. Ask.com uses link popularity and subject-specific popularity to help determine rankings.
Ask.com has sold technology has been sold to additional corporations including Toshiba and Dell. A variety of web destinations, including country specific, sites such as; Germany, Italy, Excite, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, IWon.com, Bloglines, and Ask For Kids are owned by Ask.com.