Who's Online Question

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  • DaveAK
    New Member
    • Dec 2005
    • 26
    • 3.5.x

    Who's Online Question

    This isn't really a how to, but I don't know where else to post it.

    I've only had my board up and running a few days and tonight when it's really quiet on my board, (10PM Alaska time), I noticed about 6 or so IP addresses that were all very similar. First 3 octets were all the same, and were AOL addresses. They were only identified as Guests and not as spiders. I only have two members that use AOL.

    How do I figure out who/what they were? (OK, maybe it is a how to!)
  • Jake Bunce
    Senior Member
    • Dec 2000
    • 46598
    • 3.6.x

    #2
    They were probably unidentified spiders. Do a Google search for the IPs.

    Comment

    • DaveAK
      New Member
      • Dec 2005
      • 26
      • 3.5.x

      #3
      Originally posted by Jake Bunce
      They were probably unidentified spiders. Do a Google search for the IPs.
      I did a reverse lookup at the time, which just identified them as AOL addresses, no useful info. And like an idiot I didn't write them down. I'll google them when they reappear. (I can rember them pretty well except for the second octet. )

      Is there a way to stop spiders visiting my site? Is it still done using robots.txt in my document root folder?

      Thanks for your reply.

      Comment

      • Jake Bunce
        Senior Member
        • Dec 2000
        • 46598
        • 3.6.x

        #4
        Yes, most spiders respect the robots.txt file.

        Comment

        • DaveAK
          New Member
          • Dec 2005
          • 26
          • 3.5.x

          #5
          Originally posted by Jake Bunce
          Yes, most spiders respect the robots.txt file.
          I had the same sort of problem today. I had updated my spiders_vbulletin.xml file with one posted at vbulletin.org, (I think, maybe it was from here), and they still weren't identified. If these are indeed spiders they aren't identifying themselves, so would they bother to respect the robots.txt file?

          If they're not spiders what else could they be? Both times there's been at least 6 similar IP addresses, all from AOL proxies. I'm certain they're not users who just haven't logged in yet.

          What to do? I'm a newbie at this, having been going less than a week, and I'm all nervous. If they're spiders I can deal with it, if they're something else I'd like to know. For the meantime I've disallowed all robots from all areas of my site using robots.txt

          I have a couple of the IP addresses if that will help anyone help me.

          Comment

          • Jake Bunce
            Senior Member
            • Dec 2000
            • 46598
            • 3.6.x

            #6
            Originally posted by DaveAK
            If they're not spiders what else could they be?
            Unidentifiable spiders most likely. The internet is flooded with them. I wouldn't worry about it.

            Comment

            • DaveAK
              New Member
              • Dec 2005
              • 26
              • 3.5.x

              #7
              Originally posted by Jake Bunce
              Unidentifiable spiders most likely. The internet is flooded with them. I wouldn't worry about it.
              Good enough for me Jake. Thanks!

              Comment

              • Razz
                Member
                • Jun 2001
                • 54

                #8
                Wouldn't they more likely be AOL's web caches?

                Seen quite a few webcaches that cause users browsing the site to have multiple IP addresses.

                Comment

                • DaveAK
                  New Member
                  • Dec 2005
                  • 26
                  • 3.5.x

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Razz
                  Wouldn't they more likely be AOL's web caches?

                  Seen quite a few webcaches that cause users browsing the site to have multiple IP addresses.
                  So one guest would be represented several times with different IP addresses? Anyway to identify and aggregate them into one user?

                  Comment

                  • Razz
                    Member
                    • Jun 2001
                    • 54

                    #10
                    Through the web caches it is possible for a single user to have multiple IP addresses, usually only a few digits apart.

                    I think there's a hack on vbulletin.org for fetching the true IP address rather than the caches IP.

                    Comment

                    • DaveAK
                      New Member
                      • Dec 2005
                      • 26
                      • 3.5.x

                      #11
                      Originally posted by Razz
                      Through the web caches it is possible for a single user to have multiple IP addresses, usually only a few digits apart.

                      I think there's a hack on vbulletin.org for fetching the true IP address rather than the caches IP.
                      I installed a hack to show real vs. proxy IP address. Don't know if this is the one you mean. I'm intrigued by these web caches you talk about, but I'm totally clueless on this subject. Here's what I noticed today :

                      Several Guests with similar IP addresses, but viewing different pages.
                      A lurking guest finally registered with one of these IP addresses, but a guest was also shown with the same IP address at the same time, viewing a different page.
                      Gradually the similar addresses started to disappear, leaving the registered user.

                      And of course, all these IP addresses are cache-xyz-proxy.aol.com.

                      Does not seem to be a problem with spammers/spiders or the like from what's been happening and what you've described. But I sure would like a way to clear this mess up. Is it possible? Can you give any further explanation as to what's happening?

                      Thanks!

                      Comment

                      • Razz
                        Member
                        • Jun 2001
                        • 54

                        #12
                        I'm no expert on webcaches but I would imagine it would work something like this:

                        Your browser is configured to fetch pages from the webcache rather than directly from the web itself presumably in an attempt to speed up your browsing.

                        If the page you request is not in the webcache or is considered too old to be current then the webcache would fetch the page for you. A company like AOL would have a lot of IP addresses assigned to webcaches so I would imagine there would be a good possibility that as you browsed a particular site it would be fetching these pages to the cache via multiple IP addresses.

                        This would give the appearance of there being multiple users when in fact it's the same user just having his pages fetched to the cache from multiple IP addresses.

                        I'm sure someone on here will be more clued up on how caches work and correct my assumptions

                        Comment

                        • aciurczak
                          Senior Member
                          • May 2005
                          • 137
                          • 3.8.x

                          #13
                          When an AOL user logs in on my board, they show up as several different users on who's online, just as you describe. AOL's proxy servers don't pass the host IP across, so even if you do implement that IP Proxy hack from vb.org, I believe the AOL users will still look the same on who's online.
                          www.montgomerybikers.com / www.ninjette.org / www.cal24.com

                          Comment

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