What is a ''Bot''?

Can someone please explain what a ''Bot'' is? I know I was asked if I was one during registration and keep seeing the word around the site.
Sorry for my ignorance. lol

Hi Dirose, a bot is an automated scanning programme that trawls through websites, usually trying to post links or spam into threads.

Yahoo seems to attract the most, but they come from every server.

John

One other thing that bots are used for is harvesting email addresses for spammers and scammers. They are set to crawl through pages and pick up all emails that are posted--those addresses then form lists that are used by spammers and/or scammers. An email that is publicly posted anywhere on the internet, whether it's directly on a website, in an open forum, or on a petition or guestbook, is likely to be harvested by a bot, and then passed on to spammers and/or scammers. This is one reason we sometimes remove members' addresses from their posts. Frankly, we aren't concerned about protecting scammers from spam--but we don't want addresses of innocent parties to be picked up from our site.

Thanks for the answer guys. I did wonder.

Bots are also used by search engines, so when you type in a search request, the search engine can find what you are looking for. We allow the search engine bots to enter so topics will come up when people are looking to see if they are being scammed.

Bots can be used for good and for bad.