I am not sure on this. I thought not, but have seen some weird things happen on a few sites when a googlebot crawled and seemed to access areas it shouldnt have.
this article (2006) says it does not use cookies nor javascript. http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/The_Spider_of_Doom.aspx but this page, a cache from what google saw at another site, implies that it does have cookies enabled. http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache...+googlebot+cookies+enabled&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1 i guess i will have to test this myself because nobody seems to know.
No, bro, that page does not indicate that Gbot has either cookies or Javascript enabled. You have them enabled, so you see what you need to when viewing the cache. Gbot does not have them enabled, although there is functionality to allow Google's AdSense bot to access login only areas. You have to set that up in your AdSense account though. -Michael
Google bot has cookies enabled, because on my forums, there is always one Google Bot, but there are sometimes 20 Yahoo or MSN bots. That is because Yahoo just opens a page and then opens another page and VB counts each one as a separate visitor, BUT, Google Bot recieves and sends back the cookies from my forums and that's why only it's position on the forum changes!
No, that's not why, you just made that up. Gbot wil spider thousands of pages using the same IP address, so is seen as 1 visitor... Yahoo will use tons of diff ones for each spidering session. -Michael
Haha... Even if it changes it's IP addresses and sends back the same cookies, then it will count as the same visitor! That's the best I can explain this.
No. The point is that it doesn't change IP addresses, so doesn't need to send a cookie to be seen as the same visitor. -Michael
I would suggest you to use linx browser (Linux based text browser) to test your site. Google says their crawlers are based on linx browser functionality. As for myself I doubt they have cookies support.
That is because it sends VB's session cookie back, so VB only makes one session for it, and Yahoo doesn't, that's why it makes 20 sessions for Yahoo at once
Read my previous posts, a web developer would understand this very easy. BTW, why are you saying that it doesn't understand cookies?
Your precious posts state that the reason you believe it is because it only shows on Gbot on your vb site at a time, whereas it shows multiple Yahoo bots. Correct? That's your evidence? Because I am a programmer and know how these things work. I can actually prove it, but I'm not sure you would be able to even understand the proof. Even your phrasing about whether or not it "understands" cookies leads me to believe you don't know what it is. -Michael
Before I spend an hour setting it up, wth is yours? Are you only talking what you already posted? -Michael
Yes, the googlebot does eat cookies. It requires an hourly supply of cookies, otherwise it refuses to continue crawling. Usually Sergey feeds it a few Oreos, but sometimes it gets Chips Ahoy as a special treat.