What are

I can't get on to certain web sites. The error message states my computer cat access .NETpassport. After trouble shooting with MSN techs for 3 hours, they suggested that I am having problems because of "spiders" and I need to download a certain patch. I can receive and send mail and get home pages up, but I can't get into anything that requires a password, such as my on line Bank account. I'll let you know if the patch works. What exactly is a spider? Thanks.

Hate Compaq & MSN

Andy

This question was answered on March 20, 2003. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

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Spiders are computer robot programs, referred to sometimes as "crawlers" or "knowledge-bots" or "knowbots" that are used by search engines to roam the World Wide Web via the Internet, visit sites and databases, and keep the search engine database of web pages up to date They obtain new pages, update known pages, and delete obsolete ones Their findings are then integrated into the "home" database

Most large search engines operate several robots all the time Even so, the Web is so enormous that it can take six months for spiders to cover it, resulting in a certain degree of "out-of-datedness" (link rot) in all the search engines.

About the author

Posted by Enyenihi of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on March 20, 2003

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