Patent attributes
A web-crawler system includes a plurality of network crawlers configured to fetch documents from hosts on a network and a cookie database shared by the plurality of network crawlers. The cookie database stores cookies and associated information for use by the plurality of network crawlers. Each network crawler is configured to retrieve one or more cookies from the cookie database so as to enable access to documents on at least one of the hosts on the network. In some embodiments, each of the network crawlers may be configured to detect any of a plurality of predefined cookie errors associated with fetching a document. In some embodiments, each of the network crawlers may also be configured to detect when a cookie in the cookie database has expired and to obtain a replacement cookie.