This table contains the details of the robots or web spiders. The table is used to eliminate the robot data from any recorded visitors to a site. Each record contains the known details for one specific robot. The table is populated with some of the more commonly encountered robots but more are being deployed regularly and the table provided the ability for site administrators to add their own specific robots that they may encounter.
The only required field is the identifier field which contains the details of the robot as stored in the header of the connecting client. The other fields are either to enable control of the records or provide information that may or may not be of interesting about the specific robot itself.
Table 8.4. Robot table description
Column Name |
Type |
Size |
Not Null? |
Constraints |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
id |
Number |
n/a |
Yes |
Primary key |
A unique numeric identification for each record. Populated by an auto-sequence. |
identifier |
Varchar |
60 |
Yes |
None |
The identifier string present in the accessing software header. |
description |
Varchar |
1024 |
No |
None |
Short descriptive text about the robot if any is known. . |
hostname |
Varchar |
120 |
No |
None |
Details of the hostname or source of the robot when known. This information may provide some assistance in determining the source of the robot. |
addresses |
Varchar |
1024 |
No |
None |
Informational details of some of the addresses that are used specifically by the robot, when known. |
state |
Number |
4 |
No |
None |
Indicates that record is visible to visitor agent (front end). |
ordering |
Number |
11 |
No |
None |
Order in which records are retrieved (displayed). |
checked_out |
Number |
11 |
Yes |
None |
Joomla field record locking |
checked_out_time |
Date |
n/a |
Yes |
None |
Joomla field record locking |
created_on |
Date |
n/a |
Yes |
None |
Date the record was created. |
created_by |
Varchar |
255 |
Yes |
None |
The user who created the record. |
modified_on |
Date |
n/a |
Yes |
None |
The date the record was last modified. |
modified_by |
Varchar |
255 |
Yes |
None |
The user who last modified the record. |
Notes:
-
The order in which the robot identifiers are placed in the search list within the visitors modules is determined by the ordering column. Hence the most frequently encountered are placed first in the list.
-
The only mandatory field that the site administrator must supply is the 'identifier' field which is used to check the visitor agent header to determine whether it is a true individual or a robot/web crawler.
![[Important]](/media/com_docimport/admonition/important.png) | Important |
|---|---|
|
The entries in this table do not 'reject' or stop the specified robots from accessing the site, for which they need to be added to the site 'robots.txt' table. Instead they are used to prevent their occurrence in the recorded site visitors tables. |