Ok, so I had a bit of time this morning and had this thought go through my head with regards to a small little programming project. I might try and tackle this myself when I have some time. Here’s what the program would do:
A user enters in a website domain into a dialog box, or into a file somewhere. The program then connects to that site, scans for the very first link it can find and follows that link. It then scans that page and finds another link, and follows it, etc.
Each time the program follows a link, it displays the name of the domain it is connecting to. The program continuously keeps going from link to link to link outputting on screen/browser where it has reached. In theory, the program could go on infinitely and I think it would be interesting to see exactly where it leads.
Does anyone know if such a program exists already? I know there are spiders which check and index various links, but I’m looking to see if there’s one that actually just visits the first link (or 2nd/3rd, etc if one is found to be dead) and follows that path to see where it will lead.
I think it would be rather easy to write in PHP. Might have to see if I can whip up something.
Any thoughts Chris?
5 Responses to Hey Chris, code this!