Bots on the site?

[bedtimeprayers]

There are currently 82 people online. Only 5 are users. It's hard to believe there are 77 lurkers and no one making new accounts.
Does anyone know if these could be bots?
I know on fish eaters the "online" people sometimes shows bots by name, like google bot, bing bot, etc.
I'm wondering if there's actually 82 lurkers or 82 bots?
If there's at least half of 82 that's not bots, why are so many people online and not posting?
Is it typical of forums to have so many "guests" that just never post? Anything we could do to be more welcoming and encourage posting?

[TerrorDæmonum]

The number of guests is normal.

It is spiders, lurkers, people who visited the site in the past 15 minutes, etc.

SMF will display the count for a set time frame, so you are getting a snapshot of about that time. For the spiders, the more links and content on the forum there are, the more time they spend and more frequently they visit.

In my experience, the number of Users is the most significant. This forum has a lot of people who have accounts, log in regularly, but have no apparent public activity. They may use personal messages or chat though. Some people have their online status hidden, but if you pay attention, you can tell who they are based on activities on the forum.

The forum is pretty slow, so I spend time looking at the numbers and names myself.

[bedtimeprayers]

What is a spider?

[TerrorDæmonum]

What is a spider?

A search engine crawler.

[bedtimeprayers]

So bots basically?
I don't understand much how online bots work.
Are you saying a substantial portion of users online might be spider bots?
I just want to know how many people are actually reading what we post.
If it's half of 80 something we should be trying to set a better example! There might be people looking to convert reading the forum

[TerrorDæmonum]

So bots basically?
I don?t understand much how online bots work.

Yes, but normally, I would use the word "bot" on a forum to refer to something posting on it, rather than just visiting and viewing what is public.

When I read your title first, I thought you may have been asking about a user account being a bot due to the strange and repetitive way they post.

Are you saying a substantial portion of users online might be spider bots?

Yes, they usually are. Even an empty forum will have some pretty consistent activity from them if they can find the site.

I just want to know how many people are actually reading what we post.

There is no way to know, but the "times read" number is higher than the number of people who actually read it.

The fact that an unknown number of people read but don't interact is a feature of public forums: the lurkers are the main audience.

If it?s half of 80 something we should be trying to set a better example! There might be people looking to convert reading the forum

Surely.