It was the spiders mentioned in who's on line, there are other names showing aswell, they are in black whereas the usual posters are in blue font. It is a recent phenonemen.(sp)
Brian;
Those are the search engines, ie. Google, Ask, Yahoo, Bing, etc. reaching their tentacles out into the forum searching for keywords that someone has launched in their search environment. How that works specifically, I cannot answer. Perhaps one of the Admins has a better understanding or clearer explanation.
No probs. I used to be quite involved in SEO until I realized how insidious it was.
Here's an example. This week I had a local client ask me to re-do his small website. He already had a GoDaddy account for it so I had to login to his account to see what was what.
Next thing I know I have GoDaddy ads appearing on these boards.
Now peeps will say just use an ad blocker but for me that's not the point. I don't begrudge Jon trying to monetize the site. The principle is is that there is a mega company out there compiling a profile of me and my browsing habits and distributing that profile to anyone who wishes to use it for their own ends.
When you look into it, the scope of it is huge and quite deceitful.
I believe the UK passed legislation that all sites require a notice explaining how cookies are used to track information about you.
The principle is is that there is a mega company out there compiling a profile of me and my browsing habits and distributing that profile to anyone who wishes to use it for their own ends.
I agree 100%. This is a big part of the reason I don't use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or other social networking sites. They are essentially data farms that the individual companies then sell to marketers to try to target ads specifically to you.
I agree 100%. This is a big part of the reason I don't use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or other social networking sites. They are essentially data farms that the individual companies then sell to marketers to try to target ads specifically to you.