Software that runs automated tasks over the Internet
For other uses, see Automated bot.
For bot operation on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Bots.
See also: Software agent
An Internet bot, web robot, robot or simply bot (an abbreviation of robot),[1] is a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) on the Internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity, such as messaging, on a large scale.[2] An Internet bot plays the client role in a client–server model whereas the server role is usually played by web servers. Internet bots are able to perform simple and repetitive tasks much faster than a person could ever do. The most extensive use of bots is for web crawling, in which an automated script fetches, analyzes and files information from web servers. More than half of all web traffic is generated by bots.[3]
Efforts by web servers to restrict bots vary. Some servers have a robots.txt file that contains the rules governing bot behavior on that server. Any bot that does not follow the rules could, in theory, be denied access to or removed from the affected website. If the posted text file has no associated program/software/app, then adhering to the rules is entirely voluntary. There would be no way to enforce the rules or to ensure that a bot's creator or implementer reads or acknowledges the robots.txt file. Some bots are "good", e.g. search engine spiders, while others are used to launch malicious attacks on political campaigns, for example.[3]
^"bot". Etymology, origin and meaning of bot by etymonline. October 9, 1922. Retrieved September 21, 2023.
^Dunham, Ken; Melnick, Jim (2009). Malicious Bots: An outside look of the Internet. CRC Press. ISBN 978-1420069068.
^ abZeifman, Igal (January 24, 2017). "Bot Traffic Report 2016". Incapsula. Retrieved February 1, 2017.
An Internetbot, web robot, robot or simply bot (an abbreviation of robot), is a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) on the Internet...
The dead Internet theory is an online conspiracy theory that asserts that the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated...
Bot or BOT may refer to: Chatbot, a computer program that converses in natural language Internetbot, a software application that runs automated tasks...
Wikipedia bots are Internetbots (computer programs) that perform simple, repetitive tasks on Wikipedia. One prominent example of an internetbot used in...
Web Bot is an internetbot computer program whose developers claim is able to predict future events by tracking keywords entered on the internet. It was...
A Twitter bot is a type of software bot that controls a Twitter account via the Twitter API. The social bot software may autonomously perform actions...
human players in unison, either over the Internet, on a LAN or in a local session. Features and intelligence of bots may vary greatly, especially with community...
social bots are equipped with or can generate convincing internet personas that are well capable of influencing real people. Using social bots is against...
sometimes called a spider or spiderbot and often shortened to crawler, is an Internetbot that systematically browses the World Wide Web and that is typically...
An IRC bot is a set of scripts or an independent program that connects to Internet Relay Chat as a client, and so appears to other IRC users as another...
Dead Internet theory Eugene Goostman Friendly artificial intelligence Gemini (from Google) Hybrid intelligent system Intelligent agent Internetbot List...
A software bot is a type of software agent in the service of software project management and software engineering. A software bot has an identity and potentially...
BattleBots is an American robot combat television series and company. The show is an adaptation of the American Robot Wars competitions hosted in the mid–late...
A botnet is a group of Internet-connected devices, each of which runs one or more bots. Botnets can be used to perform Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS)...
Bingbot is a web-crawling robot (type of internetbot), deployed by Microsoft October 2010 to supply Bing. It collects documents from the web to build...
Project BotScout: Anti-bot service dedicated to fighting forum spam Spambot Beware! - information on how to avoid, detect, and harass spambots Bot-trap -...
Neubot (the network neutrality bot) is a free software Internetbot, developed and maintained by the Nexa Center for Internet and Society, that gathers network...
Gambling bots / Betting bots are software which use a gambling website's Application programming interface (API) to speed up the process of placing bets...
Internet manipulation is the co-optation of online digital technologies, including algorithms, social bots, and automated scripts, for commercial, social...
article-creating program, or Wikipedia bot, developed by Sverker Johansson for the Swedish Wikipedia. The bot primarily focuses on articles about living...
Wide Web content that exists on darknets: overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access...
Msnbot was a web-crawling robot (type of internetbot), deployed by Microsoft to collect documents from the web to build a searchable index for the MSN...
QuillBot is a software developed in 2017 that uses artificial intelligence to rewrite and paraphrase text. According to a 30 under 30 listing on Forbes...
Internet (exchanging textual messages in real time). It is distinct from an IRC bot that connects outbound to an IRC channel. The server listens to connections...
The noindex value of an HTML robots meta tag requests that automated Internetbots avoid indexing a web page. Reasons why one might want to use this meta...
functionality similar to curl; class Web-client too. Web crawler – an internetbot that can crawl the web Wget – similar command-line tool with no associated...
Global Information