Thursday, September 1, 2011

I "Bot" some Trouble

I knew I shouldn't have made fun of Googlebot by referring to it as Googlebutt in the combox of my recent post Would You Care for a Slice of Humble Pie? It seems Googlebot has some close relatives who took offense at my remark and one particular bot cousin decided to insert a little extra code into one of my widgets. What happens when one of these little trolls inserts extra code into one of your gadgets is this:
No one can get onto your site. It sends them somewhere else. It's not a virus - these bots can do this on third party widgets. I wanted to warn others in case this happens to them. Puff at Puff's Blog about Stuff has a post up that points out how busy these little bots can be. The concern isn't so much with Googlebot but with other bots trolling the blogosphere. Like the hungry blog monster who steals your comments  and posts before you can publish them, these little fellows can cause a whole heap of trouble.

Did you know the word widget is also used to describe a certain type of gremlin? Yep, found that piece of information on Wikipedia. Just a tidbit to clutter the "useless trivia that will never come in handy" section of your brain. Kind of like square roots which I've never had the opportunity to use in real life. Gremlin...hmmm. Well, if the shoe fits....

Thank you, Victor, for your brilliant insight on ridding oneself of widgets. I must admit, "fig juice" and "castor oil" never crossed my mind :-)


9 comments:

  1. Who knew how much trouble those bots can cause! I put up the link to the problematic code because a number of people are having the same issue. It worried me at first though :)

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  2. So that's what it was. I tried getting on to your blog a few times at work yesterday and it kept sending me to some domain site called blogroll. I was going to e-mail you when I got home but all was fine by then. I thought it was my dinosaur of a computer at work being its usual temperamental self.
    Glad those nasty things have fled your site.
    Fig juice, castor oil and maybe a little Holy Water too :)

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  3. Karin,
    A quick prayer does the trick too :) It was attached to the very first widget I checked. St. Jude works hard in this house though he's usually on the look out for escaped hamsters. He found two this week but the littlest one is quick and giving him some trouble. Lol!

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  4. Victor,
    Yes, fig juice and castor oil are well known for their cleansing properties. I couldn't figure out where to put them at first but found an open portal rather quickly. The bot got the boot and things are running smoothly I must say :) Thanks!

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  5. VERY interesting!! Now if only I could find a program that would remove the trojan that is slowing down my computer!!

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  6. MaryB

    Norton 360 It's expensive, but it is good.

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  7. Mary,
    I have Norton 360 too. It does a good job of keeping my computer virus and malware free. Security software doesn't help with bots though. Do you defragment the disc and clean up cookies regularly? This will speed your computer up too.

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  8. Mary,
    You can also system restore before the date you got the virus. Or so my husband says :)

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