Google Spiders

Not sure where to put this question, so took the plunge in chat.

Just checking the who's online and saw Google Spider looking at a thread. What do they actually do? I've seen one before looking at the photo thread.
Does it (?) store information and if so, what does it do with it?

Am I right it's called a 'robot' which means it's an automatic computer or something?

edited

Re: Google Spiders

Good question Pesta.

Re: Google Spiders

The spider
The first part of what Google does is crawl the web. I'll get onto that in a moment but there a few things we need to cover first. Whenever you read an SEO article, the verbs ‘crawl’ and ‘spider’ and (sometimes) ‘index’ are interchangeable. Google sends out what’s affectionately known as a ‘spider’ to ‘crawl’ the web, going from link to link creating a web (geddit?), and cataloging, or ‘indexing’ what it sees. If you wanted to mimic the actions of the Google spider, start at a big site, like Wikipedia, and click every link you see. Then go to those pages, and click every link and so on. Once you’ve clicked a few hundred billion pages, you’ll be somewhere close.

Google’s spider can only crawl linked pages by the way - it can only access pages that you could access with a mouse. It can’t enter in login details or passwords, and it can’t enter terms in your search bar. As a general rule, if your page isn’t accessible by a clickable link, Google probably won’t see it.

I found this on the net.

Re: Google Spiders

By 'eck Tiff, you're a clever gal!

I need to get my head round that a bit more.

Re: Google Spiders

How do you think Google is able to direct you to sites when you ask it a question? It isn't using Mr Google's psychic powers, it goes out and explores the WWW constantly.

These bots find the answers to questions you have yet to ask.

Re: Google Spiders

Well, bugger! I prefer to think Mr. Spider is working his little heart out spinning his web that will take me to where I wanna go!!

Re: Google Spiders

Pesta putting it simply, the spiders are mainly good spiders. They scan the site daily as part of the indexing process so that when people on the net search for certain words they are directed to appropriate sites.