Hello there
Does anybody please have any information on the specific difficulties search engine spiders have with cookies and what methods can be used to circumvent the problems they face? I am a marketing consultant working with a range of clients who use log file analysis tools such as WebTrends and RedSheriff. Both of these tools (and others) use (or at least have an option to use) cookies in order to track unique visitors to web sites. My understanding is that search engine spiders cannot accept cookies and consequently will not trawl a site that serves cookies to them. I understand that cloaking is a POSSIBLE solution - however this in itself raises a few questions for me: 1) If cloaking is an acceptable method to get round the problem of sending away a search engine spider (and consequently not indexing pages within a site), how should this technology be implemented and what pitfalls need to be considered. 2) Most search engines state clearly that they do ban sites altogether from their indexes if they discover cloaking has been used? Are there any other methods that are preferable? The manufacturers of both WebTrends and RedSheriff have not provided me with any information on this matter and so I would like to raise issues highlighted in any responses so that they can respond formally. I have to say that although I have a technical background I am not a programmer or software developer - but I have been learning a lot simply by subscribing to this list - keep up the great work. However, I am looking for a reasonably technical answer (or where I might go to find one please) so that I can pass on specific suggestions to my client, WebTrends and RedSheriff. Thanks for any help you can give. Regards Dave Watson. -- This message was sent by the Internet robots and spiders discussion list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). For list server commands, send "help" in the body of a message to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]".
