This document is the final report for the WebWatch project. The WebWatch project has been funded by the BLRIC (the British Library Research and Innovation Centre).
The aim of this document is to describe why a project such as WebWatch was needed, to give a brief overview of robot software on the World Wide Web, to review the development of the WebWatch robot software, to report on the WebWatch trawls which were carried out and to summarise the conclusions drawn from the trawl.
This document includes the individual reports made following each of the trawls, in order to provide easy access to the reports.
The structure of this document is summarised below:
Section 2 gives an outline of the WeWatch project.
Section 3 gives a background to robot software, describes the robot software used by the WebWatch project.
Section 4 provides background reading on robot technologies.
Section 5 reviews the trawls carried out by WebWatch.
Section 6 summaries the conclusions gained from the WebWatch trawls.
Section 7 describes Web-based services which have been produced to accompany the WebWatch robot software development.
Section 8 describes possible future developments for automated analyses of Web resources.
The appendices include a number of the reports which have been produced which describe the main trawls carried out by the project and reviews WebWatch dissemination.