In my web usage by broswer stats section on my server, the top one is
"Web Snooper" What is this "Web Snooper"?

Hi arogers,

There are several totally unrelated programs that are referred to as
"web snoopers."  In your case, a "Web Snooper" is a program that
checks a web page at a set interval to determine if there have been
any changes made since the last visit.  This could be a computer
running a script for a single individual, or a service employed by
thousands to send them e-mail when a specified web page changes.

Examples of such "Web Snoopers" can be seen here:

"Web Snooper"
http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~dudek/206/ass1-solution/x12.html

The above site provides programming code that would enable an
individual to build their own personal "web snooper."

"ChangeDetection(tm) - Know when any web page changes"
http://www.changedetection.com/

This service allows any individual to monitor a web page for changes
and receive e-mail notification when changes do occur.  It also allows
a webmaster to integrate ChangeDetection into their site, allowing
visitors to be notified each time the site changes.


The reason why "Web Snooper" is on the top of the list is because of
the frequency which the snooping service checks the page.  In reality,
only one or two of your visitors may be using a web snooping service.

WORKS CITED

"308-206B Assignment 1"
http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~dudek/206/asst1.html

"ChangeDetection(tm) - Know when any web page changes"
http://www.changedetection.com/

SEARCH STRATEGY

"Web Snooper"
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=%22Web+Snooper%22

website "change detection"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=website+%22change+detection%22

I hope this information is of assistance to you,

rmn-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by arogers-ga on 14 Sep 2002 03:37 PDT

Thank-you for an excellent answer
Web Snooper comes up under the stats section "web usage by browser"
at the NO.1 postion with 36% then IE5 etc etc etc down the list.
How do I stop this "Web Snooper" activity? at 36% it is rather a large
drain on my resources. There is NO reason why anyone would want to
monitor changes on my front page ... or is there I wonder... hmmmm 
I'd like to stop it if I can

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Clarification of Answer by rmn-ga on 14 Sep 2002 08:19 PDT

There is little you can do to prevent the use of web snoopers.  I
would suggest posting a message on your site asking users to please
disable any such services, as they are creating a drain on resources. 
Also keep in mind that depending on the statistics program your server
is running, spiders and bots from search engines may also be
considered web snoopers, however due to the high volume of snooper
activity, this is unlikely in your case.

I would suggest some things:

1. Try using robots.txt, which would assist in the case of well
behaved snoopers - start at

http://www.searchengineworld.com/robots/robots_tutorial.htm

for more information.

2. The snoopers not necessarily drain your resources if they just
check time stamps on your files and avoid retrieval if nothing
changed. They too try to conserve their resources. (Try looking at the
bandwidth statistics, rather than hits).