Remove Spiders from Who's Online
Mod Version: 1.00, by mfyvie
This modification is in the archives.
| vB Version: 3.6.x | Rating:  (9 votes - 4.44 average) |
Installs: 68 |
| Released: 15 Jul 2007 | Last Update: 17 Jul 2007 | Downloads: 385 |
 Not Supported
 DB Changes
Uses Plugins
|
||
*** Staff note: The author of this modification has passed away in a http://www.englishforum.ch/announcements/20529-mourning-loss-friend-leader-innovator-genuinely-nice-guy.html. We wish his family all strength in dealing with this traggic issue. ***
Remove Spiders from Who's Online
The problem
The majority of the the "guests" on your forum are probably spiders. While you might think that it is impressive to show so many guests using your forum, this does not reflect the true number of people online. The who's online page does offer visitors the chance to change the display based on members, guests, or spiders, however the totals (and the record number of users online at one time) do not exclude spiders.
This mod does not remove spiders from your forum, it simply stops them being counted in the totals.
Some search engine spiders such as Yahoo's Slurp can initiate hundreds of connections at the same time (from different IP addresses). Each one of these connections will be included in your totals as a "guest".
What does this modification do?
Anyone who wants to their forum to show the true number of users online in the statistics
I run a big system, will this slow my board down?
Absolutely not. It's been written with big boards in mind. Even if you use a very large spiders_vbulletin.xml file, this file will only be checked once for each new session created. After that, whether the session is used by a spider is recorded in the session table. For users running vBulletin 3.6.6 or later, it will actually increase the speed of the who's online page, since known spiders are no longer compared against the list of known spider user agents. No new database queries are added, as existing queries are used or modified instead.
Hasn't this been done before?
There are a couple, but I've taken a slightly different approach with this mod - my focus was on simplicity and performance. You might also want to check out some other mods here and here, to see if they suit your purposes better.
Installation instructions
Nothing to configure! Just see the note below about spiders_vbulletin.xml
How can I make this more effective?
Spiders are identified via the includes/xml/spiders_vbulletin.xml file. However, the version that ships with vBulletin is quite small, and will recognise only the most popular spiders. Anything else will still show up in your statistics as a guest, making it hard to tell real guests from spiders.
Therefore it is recommended to update your spiders_vbulletin.xml if using this mod. You can obtain a much better version of this file from Christian Stadler http://www.ragnarokonline.de/spiderlist. Please contribute new user agent strings directly to him and encourage him to keep providing new updates of this file.
Will using a big spiders_vbulletin.xml slow things down? Theoretically yes, but in practical terms now. Lookups are only one once for each session when it is created. If you are running a version earlier than vBulletin 3.6.6 it will mean that more work must be done on the who's online page, but nowhere else.
Which versions of vBulletin will this work on?
This mod is designed to work for 3.6.6 and above, but there is some additional code included to handle 3.6.0 - 3.6.5 as well.
Optional extras
If you are using vBAdvanced then you'll want to modify your online users module. The following change should work for but versions 2.x and 3.x. Go to your modules/onlineusers.php file and locate this line:
Directly under this line, insert the following line (on a line by itself):
Please don't forget to include the quotes exactly as they appear above.
If you'd like to also include the quick stats in your admincp with this modification open your admincp/index.php file and locate this line:
replace it with:
Would you like to reset your maximum online users statistic (the one on the front page or who's online page that tells you the most number of users ever online)? go to the AdminCP -> Maintenance -> Execute SQL Query and run the following query:
There is an additional file, spider_test.php that can be used to test the operation of this mod, as well as giving you a handy overview of which guests have not been classified as spiders, but probably should be. You can then use the user agent strings to expand your spiders_vbulletin.xml file. You can run spider_test.php from any forum directory, just upload it and then type the path to the file into your browser.
Support
Will be provided to those who click install
Version history
1.0 (15.07.2007) Initial version
Disclaimer: No actual spiders where harmed during the development of this modification.
Remove Spiders from Who's Online
The problem
The majority of the the "guests" on your forum are probably spiders. While you might think that it is impressive to show so many guests using your forum, this does not reflect the true number of people online. The who's online page does offer visitors the chance to change the display based on members, guests, or spiders, however the totals (and the record number of users online at one time) do not exclude spiders.
This mod does not remove spiders from your forum, it simply stops them being counted in the totals.
Some search engine spiders such as Yahoo's Slurp can initiate hundreds of connections at the same time (from different IP addresses). Each one of these connections will be included in your totals as a "guest".
What does this modification do?
- Completely remove all known spiders (spiders found in your includes/xml/spiders_vbulletin.xml file) from the who's online display
- Updates the true guest totals displayed on the main forum page
- Resets your maximum users online record on installation
- Includes changes for vBadvanced's online users module
- Doesn't offer separate spider statistics or configuration, it just makes it appear like those spiders aren't on your forum (even though they are)
- Easy access through template conditionals and variables to display different behaviours based on whether the connection is from a spider or not.
Anyone who wants to their forum to show the true number of users online in the statistics
I run a big system, will this slow my board down?
Absolutely not. It's been written with big boards in mind. Even if you use a very large spiders_vbulletin.xml file, this file will only be checked once for each new session created. After that, whether the session is used by a spider is recorded in the session table. For users running vBulletin 3.6.6 or later, it will actually increase the speed of the who's online page, since known spiders are no longer compared against the list of known spider user agents. No new database queries are added, as existing queries are used or modified instead.
Hasn't this been done before?
There are a couple, but I've taken a slightly different approach with this mod - my focus was on simplicity and performance. You might also want to check out some other mods here and here, to see if they suit your purposes better.
Installation instructions
- If using vBadvanced, see the instructions below for a manual edit of your onlineusers.php file
- Install the enclosed .xml file via AdminCP -> Plugins & Products -> Manage Products -> Add/Import Product. Remember to click overwrite if upgrading
- Wait a few minutes - existing sessions must have some activity before they are reclassifed as a genuine member or guest
- (optional) Edit your admincp quick statistics file (instructions below)
- (optional) Reset your maximum online statistics again (if you feel the need, but it is done automatically during installation)
Nothing to configure! Just see the note below about spiders_vbulletin.xml
How can I make this more effective?
Spiders are identified via the includes/xml/spiders_vbulletin.xml file. However, the version that ships with vBulletin is quite small, and will recognise only the most popular spiders. Anything else will still show up in your statistics as a guest, making it hard to tell real guests from spiders.
Therefore it is recommended to update your spiders_vbulletin.xml if using this mod. You can obtain a much better version of this file from Christian Stadler http://www.ragnarokonline.de/spiderlist. Please contribute new user agent strings directly to him and encourage him to keep providing new updates of this file.
Will using a big spiders_vbulletin.xml slow things down? Theoretically yes, but in practical terms now. Lookups are only one once for each session when it is created. If you are running a version earlier than vBulletin 3.6.6 it will mean that more work must be done on the who's online page, but nowhere else.
Which versions of vBulletin will this work on?
This mod is designed to work for 3.6.6 and above, but there is some additional code included to handle 3.6.0 - 3.6.5 as well.
Optional extras
If you are using vBAdvanced then you'll want to modify your online users module. The following change should work for but versions 2.x and 3.x. Go to your modules/onlineusers.php file and locate this line:
Code:
WHERE session.lastactivity > " . (TIMENOW - $vbulletin->options['cookietimeout']) . "
Code:
" . ($killspiders ? " AND " . TABLE_PREFIX . "session.spider = -1 " : null) . "
If you'd like to also include the quick stats in your admincp with this modification open your admincp/index.php file and locate this line:
Code:
$guestsarry = $db->query_first("SELECT COUNT(host) AS sessions FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "session WHERE userid = 0 AND lastactivity > $datecut");
Code:
$guestsarry = $db->query_first("SELECT COUNT(host) AS sessions FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "session WHERE userid = 0 " . (($vbulletin->products['whosonline_kill_spiders'] AND $vbulletin->options['enablespiders']) ? ' AND spider = -1 ' : null) . "AND lastactivity > $datecut");
Code:
DELETE FROM datastore WHERE title = 'maxloggedin' LIMIT 1
Support
Will be provided to those who click install
Version history
1.0 (15.07.2007) Initial version
Disclaimer: No actual spiders where harmed during the development of this modification.
Download
This modification is archived, downloads are still allowed.
product-whosonline_kill_spiders_1_0.xml (6.1 KB, 287 downloads)
spider_test.php (12.4 KB, 165 downloads)
Screenshots
