Please don't act like search engine bots are members...

I've seen this on quite a few sites, and it's kinda bugging me a bit. They're not members, and it annoys me when it says 'Three members online... Google, Yahoo and MSN'. Maybe it's the same forum brands which seem to have thought using cloaking to show certain content to search engines was a remotely intelligent idea (it doesn't, it gets you banned).

 

On my forums, the spiders are treated as guests, not members, and their names i.e. googlebot, yahoo slurp, etc. are listed in the guests block.

 

Well, I'm using Nexia's Web Crawlers Bundle, so they're listed separately from guests as "web crawlers". However, I do have them show up as an "entity" under Currently Active Users, though I don't really care either way, and would be just as content not displaying them. Here's what I mean, in any case:

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Is this what's annoying you?

-edit-

Oh, yeah, I just remembered AdminAddict does the same thing, too. Maybe you mean something else?

 

Your first image is the ideal way for them to be listed, imo.

 

Listing them as web crawlers is ideal, and exactly the right thing to do.

 

I use the Guest Tracking mod, and an updated Spiders file, so they get listed seperately;

 

That's what I was talking about in my post - I use Paul's mod ^