The Zim Family Cocker Spaniel Forum

I have been wondering this since the start-up of the "new" forum, so I thought I would ask. Under the registered users I keep seeing the names Google [Bot], MSN [Bot], and Yahoo [Bot]. What exactly does this mean? Just curious.

I'm not 100% positive, but i believe "Bots" are search bots, they enable us to search keywords and get stuff from the forum on google, msn, yahoo, etc.

I believe the BOTS are present when someone out there in Internet land is searching for anything and the Zim Cocker Forum is displayed high in the results. It is like the search engine results are browsing the forum. Things may have changed since the company I worked for put alot of emphasis on Internet searching for their brand.

Boat means nothing but, spider of google or yahoo search engine would visit your webpage or websites.

Google, Yahoo, and MSN go through our forum and index everything that is here. This is done using a computer commonly known as a "bot"... as in robot. The bot revisits the forum from time to time looking for new posts since the last time it was here. That way they have a complete index of our forum.

This is a good thing. It means, for example, that if someone does a Google search for "Cocker Spaniel ear infection" that they might possibly be referred to a thread on our forum about that.

It can be a double-edged sword, though. Since Google puts a copy of everything in to a cache, it means that everything you type in to the forum is easily retrievable. So, let's say you're pissed off at John Thompson of XYZ kennels and you make an angry post about John Thompson being a crook and that his kennel is a horrible puppy mill and he probably kicks the dogs when he is mad. Well, if John Thompson happens to Google himself one day, he may very well be taken right to your post. And even if you when back to the forum a few days after posting it, and deleted it... it would still be in the Google cache and he could still see it using Google.

So, the moral of the story is...
Always remember that this is a public forum and that everything you type here... even in the NCR and the prayer requests sections... can be read by the entire world. Nothing on this forum is private except for private messages. And remember, even private messages can be copied and forwarded by the people you send them to! Always keep a cool head when using the forum, and never type anything you wouldn't want the world to read.

This is what we preach to our kids regarding facebook! Luckily I do not have an issue with my child, but some of his friends do. At his 8th grade graduation, this was one of the topics covered by their graduation speaker.
Well said!