Can a blog post be written without the writer having read it?

If so, my conjecture is that (unless robots.txt is set to keep search engines from indexing it) the post exists. The rationale is Descartes in nature, though less phonetically pleasing: ‘it affects search rankings, therefore it is’.

The concept of search engines as observers is very interesting. Looking at the server logs, an enormous amount of bandwidth is consumed by spiders of all stripes.

That brings to mind the possibility of an altered Turing Test: can a spider be made whose activity is indistinguishable from a human browser?

Oh, that would be easy! Just have it come in on some random page, with probability 75% click on the photo album link (people always check the photos..why?), go back, and then with probability 50% click on the archive or resume, and then leave. If only they could leave comments…