Spider


A program that automatically fetches Web pages. Spiders are used to feed pages to search engines. It’s called a spider because it crawls over the Web. Another term for these programs is webcrawler.

Because most Web pages contain links to other pages, a spider can start almost anywhere. As soon as it sees a link to another page, it goes off and fetches it. Large search engines, like Alta Vista, have many spiders working in parallel.

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    (spī´dër trap) (n.) A condition of dynamic Web sites in which a search engine��s spider becomes trapped in an endless loop of code where a spider��s request for a page from a Web server is met with a the server��s request for an information input from the spider, which cannot provide information to the server […]

  • spim

    (n.) Also spelled as spIM, spam over instant messaging (IM). Spim is perpetuated by bots that harvest IM screen names off of the Internet and simulate a human user by sending spam to the screen names via an instant message. The spim typically contains a link to a Web site that the spimmer is trying […]

  • spin stabilization

    In satellite communications, spin stabilization is a method of satellite stabilization and attitude control. Spin stabilization is achieved by spinning the exterior of the spacecraft on its axis at a fixed rate.

  • spin valve

    Another name for a GMR head. The term was coined by IBM. See GMR.

  • spindle

    The shaft that rotates in the middle of a disk drive. In a removable disk, the spindle remains attached to the drive, as with a CD-ROM ; with a fixed disk the spindle remains attached to the platter. Laptop computers these days are often described by the number of spindles. The increasingly common three-spindle laptop […]


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