Definitions include:
- A bot is an automated program that accesses a web site and traverses through the site by following the links present on the pages.*[1]
- Programs with some artificial intelligence that are sent to do a task in lieu of a real person. Spiders are one example. They run automatically and act autonomously.*[2]
- An artificial intelligence usually found masquerading as a human user, carrying out repetitive or tedious tasks like responding to email (presumably an abbreviation for robot)*[3]
- An Internet-related term, short for "robot," that describes programs which automate tasks such as sorting e-mail.*[4]
- An automated piece of software that can be used in chat rooms or to crawl the web.*[5]
- Refers to a robot or an agent.*[6]
- Bot is an abbreviation for robot (aka spider). These bot's are send out by Search Engines to scan through web pages and pick up new or revised content to display in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP's).
- Short for robot, this term is often used interchangeably with "intelligent agent." It is a tool for sifting through data and can be tailored to perform a specific function.*[7]
- A program on the Internet that automatically serves a request of a client. Mailbots can, for instance, give automatic responses for information on receipt of requesting E-mail.*[8]
- Short for robot. It is also known in some cases as a search engine spider whose role is to search the web for documents and changes in existing documents, read the contents of the document and send them to the indexer. Bots are simply pieces of software that automate a data gathering process, whether that is content from website's to email address harvesting.*[9]
- A program that runs on the computer 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that performs and automates mundane tasks. In the world of Web searching, bots are also called spiders and crawlers. They explore the World Wide Web by retrieving a document and following all the hyperlinks in it; then they generate catalogs that can be accessed by search engines.*[10]
- A computer that does something 'intelligent' such as generating search engine entries.*[11]
- A computer-controlled player designed to behave like a human that can take part in multiplayer games.*[12]