# Lots of guests. . . .



## Nenya Evenstar (Sep 13, 2005)

I'm just curious. At any given time, if you go to Who's Online, there are multiple Guests (usually around 20) browsing this forum. I never remember seeing this many guests in the past, even when the forum was especially busy.

Are they real people? Or are they google spiders and the like? I remember we had a problem with that at one time.

If they are real people, then that means we have more guests now than we have ever had before. Which also means we are not doing our job as a forum in attracting new members. We only have a handful of people joining now, and with the large number of guests browsing the site, this number could be a lot bigger! And this could also mean that interest in Tolkien's works/the movies is growing, not shrinking!


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## ingolmo (Sep 13, 2005)

Thats not too much. Check out the Haunted Members Online Thread by Wraithguard, in Entmoot or somewhere. In some of the posts, you'll find that members, including me, have seen around 100 guests, with most of the members usually in one sub-fora, such as LOtR or something. We think that they're bots, like some web bug that goes around surveying websites.


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## Ithrynluin (Sep 13, 2005)

Out of the 24 guests currently online, 22 are Inktomi search engine bots, 1 is an MSN bot, and 1 is an actual user who is not logged in or not registered.


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## Wraithguard (Sep 13, 2005)

What is Inktomi? Should I be scared?


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## Nenya Evenstar (Sep 13, 2005)

Sounds Japanese . . . which means it must be smart!  That's kind of what I thought. Evil bots!


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## Ithrynluin (Sep 14, 2005)

Don't work yourselves into a state now, it's just a search engine.


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## Wraithguard (Sep 14, 2005)

I had forgotten the existence of Ask Jeeves till I saw one of their spiders on the other day.

This Inktomi thing fascinates and frightens me. I shall conduct an investigation just to be on the safe side.


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