The Portal Server search server robot discovers, converts, and summarizes document resources that are available to end users. A robot is a program that:
Extracts and follows links to resources (also called crawling or enumeration)
Describes those resources
Puts resource descriptions in the database (also called indexing or generation)
The search server provides utilities to control robot actions. Administrators use the Portal Server management console to run the utilities. The ways that portal administrators can control robot processes include the following:
When the robot runs by starting, stopping, and scheduling the robot
Where the robot looks for resources by defining the sites the robot visits
How aggressively the robot searches by defining the crawling attributes
What types of resources the robot indexes by defining filters
Portal Server provides a scheduling utility for running the search server robot. Administrators can set multiple start and stop times.