Ever wanted to know when Googlebot (google’s search engine spider) visits your site? . Googlebot can be sniffed (detected) easily using php. It is identifiable by the “Googlebot” string in the HTTP_USER_AGENT field it sends with the headers. Here is a simple function called is_google() which returns TRUE if the visitor is Googlebot, else FALSE.
//The function
function is_google() {
if (strpos($_SERVER[‘HTTP_USER_AGENT’],"Googlebot"))
return true
else
return false
}
function is_google() {
if (strpos($_SERVER[‘HTTP_USER_AGENT’],"Googlebot"))
return true
else
return false
}
Usage
To use the function, just call it using an if statement, here is how :
if (is_google())
{
//do something here if the visitor is Googlebot
//like log the date and time to a file/database
}
{
//do something here if the visitor is Googlebot
//like log the date and time to a file/database
}
Some common uses of this function can be :
- Analyzing the visit of Googlebot to your sites
- Spamdexing,Cloaking ( deceiving )
serving different content (like bulk of links,high ranking keywords etc…) to Googlebot for better rankings
NOTE
Using this function for cloaking and spamdexing is a black hat SEO technique and can cause your site to be blacklisted by Google
Using this function for cloaking and spamdexing is a black hat SEO technique and can cause your site to be blacklisted by Google
