what’s a web crawler and how does it work?

Question

what’s a web crawler and how does it work?

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Answer 1

It’s a program that traverses web pages by repeatedly enumerating and then following all of the links on a given webpage. They’re mainly used in the context of search engines where they load and then index each page they encounter but they can also be used for other purposes, like collecting contact information (emails, phone numbers etc) or finding malicious file links, or links to copyrighted materials for the purpose of DMCA enforcement