---
product: Chilkat
product_version: 11.7.0
language: activex
language_label: ActiveX
class: Spider
license: free
deprecated: false
reference_html: https://www.chilkatsoft.com/refdoc/xSpiderRef.html
---
# Chilkat Spider — ActiveX — v11.7.0

> Chilkat 11.7.0 · language=activex · class=Spider
> Other versions: replace `11.7.0` in this URL. Other languages: `https://www.chilkatsoft.com/ai-docs/v/11.7.0/<lang>/classes/Spider.md`.
> Language-wide rules (install, unlock, error model, strings/bytes): `https://www.chilkatsoft.com/ai-docs/v/11.7.0/activex/guide.md`.

## Purpose

**Crawl a website domain, manage URL queues, filter links, cache pages, and inspect fetched HTML.**

`Chilkat.Spider` crawls pages within a single initialized domain. It maintains internal lists of unspidered, spidered, failed, and outbound URLs; fetches one page at a time; extracts same-domain links for continued crawling; collects outbound links separately; respects `robots.txt`; supports wildcard include and avoid patterns; can use a dedicated cache directory; and exposes the last fetched HTML, title, meta description, keywords, redirect information, cache status, and last-modified date.

**Domain-limited crawling**

Initialize the spider with a domain and crawl only URLs that belong to that same domain.

**URL queue management**

Add starting URLs, crawl the next queued URL, skip selected URLs, and inspect unspidered, spidered, failed, and outbound URL lists.

**Filtering rules**

Add wildcard avoid patterns, must-match patterns, and outbound-link avoid patterns to control which URLs are crawled or collected.

**Page metadata**

Read the last fetched HTML, page title, meta description, meta keywords, final redirect URL, and last-modified timestamp.

**Caching and redirects**

Fetch pages from a Chilkat-managed cache, update the cache, detect when a page was redirected, and inspect whether the last page came from cache.

**Network controls**

Configure user-agent, proxy settings, connect/read timeouts, IPv6 preference, maximum URL length, maximum response size, and abort support.

**Common pattern:** Call `Initialize` with the target domain, add one or more starting URLs with `AddUnspidered`, optionally add filtering patterns, then repeatedly call `CrawlNext`. After each successful crawl, inspect `LastUrl`, `LastHtml`, page metadata, redirect state, and the URL-list counts to decide whether to continue, skip, recrawl, or process the page.

**Scope note:** `Spider` is intended for controlled, domain-oriented crawling and link discovery. Use `Chilkat.Http` or `Chilkat.Rest` when the task is a single HTTP request, API call, form post, or download rather than a crawl of discovered links.

## Object creation, unlocking and error handling

**Object Creation**

```clike
Note:
For a specific major version, use "Chilkat.Spider.<major_version>", such as "Chilkat.Spider.10" for Chilkat v10.*.*
See Chilkat ActiveX Object Creation

(ASP)
set obj = Server.CreateObject("Chilkat.Spider")

(AutoIt)
$obj = ObjCreate("Chilkat.Spider")

(Visual Basic 6.0)
Dim obj As New ChilkatSpider

(VBScript)
set obj = CreateObject("Chilkat.Spider")

(VBA, such as Excel)
Dim obj As New ChilkatSpider
See How to Use ActiveX in Excel

(Delphi)
obj := TChilkatSpider.Create(Self);

(FoxPro)
loObject = CreateObject('Chilkat.Spider')

(Xbase++)
oObject := CreateObject("Chilkat.Spider")

(PowerBuilder)
lole_object = create oleobject
li_rc = lole_object.ConnectToNewObject("Chilkat.Spider")

(SQL Server)
EXEC @hr = sp_OACreate 'Chilkat.Spider', @obj OUT

(Javascript)
var obj = new ActiveXObject("Chilkat.Spider");
```

Call `Global.UnlockBundle` once at the start of the program, before using this or any other Chilkat class. Any string unlocks a fully functional 30-day trial; a purchased unlock code is used in production. See `guide.md` for the exact code in ActiveX.

How failure is reported depends on the method's return type and is stated in the note under each method below. In every case the diagnostic text is in the `LastErrorText` property of the object whose method was called.

## Members common to every Chilkat class

Documented once per language in `common-members.md`; listed here so this page is self-contained.

| Property | Signature | Access | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| `DebugLogFilePath` | `DebugLogFilePath As String` | read/write | If set to a file path, this property logs the LastErrorText of each Chilkat method or property call to the specified file. |
| `LastBinaryResult` | `LastBinaryResult As Variant (read-only)` | read-only | This property is mainly used in SQL Server stored procedures to retrieve binary data from the last method call that returned binary data. |
| `LastErrorHtml` | `LastErrorHtml As String (read-only)` | read-only | Provides HTML-formatted information about the last called method or property. |
| `LastErrorText` | `LastErrorText As String (read-only)` | read-only | Provides plain text information about the last called method or property. |
| `LastErrorXml` | `LastErrorXml As String (read-only)` | read-only | Provides XML-formatted information about the last called method or property. |
| `LastMethodSuccess` | `LastMethodSuccess As Long` | read/write | Indicates the success or failure of the most recent method call: `1` means success, `0` means failure. |
| `LastStringResult` | `LastStringResult As String (read-only)` | read-only | In SQL Server stored procedures, this property holds the string return value of the most recent method call that returns a string. |
| `LastStringResultLen` | `LastStringResultLen As Long (read-only)` | read-only | The length, in characters, of the string contained in the LastStringResult property. |
| `VerboseLogging` | `VerboseLogging As Long` | read/write | If set to `1`, then the contents of LastErrorText (or LastErrorXml, or LastErrorHtml) may contain more verbose information. |
| `Version` | `Version As String (read-only)` | read-only | Version of the component/library, such as "10.1.0" |

## Member index

| Member | Kind | Signature |
|---|---|---|
| `AbortCurrent` | property, read/write | `AbortCurrent As Long` |
| `AvoidHttps` | property, read/write | `AvoidHttps As Long` |
| `CacheDir` | property, read/write | `CacheDir As String` |
| `ChopAtQuery` | property, read/write | `ChopAtQuery As Long` |
| `ConnectTimeout` | property, read/write | `ConnectTimeout As Long` |
| `Domain` | property, read-only | `Domain As String (read-only)` |
| `FetchFromCache` | property, read/write | `FetchFromCache As Long` |
| `FinalRedirectUrl` | property, read-only | `FinalRedirectUrl As String (read-only)` |
| `HeartbeatMs` | property, read/write | `HeartbeatMs As Long` |
| `LastFromCache` | property, read-only | `LastFromCache As Long (read-only)` |
| `LastHtml` | property, read-only | `LastHtml As String (read-only)` |
| `LastHtmlDescription` | property, read-only | `LastHtmlDescription As String (read-only)` |
| `LastHtmlKeywords` | property, read-only | `LastHtmlKeywords As String (read-only)` |
| `LastHtmlTitle` | property, read-only | `LastHtmlTitle As String (read-only)` |
| `LastUrl` | property, read-only | `LastUrl As String (read-only)` |
| `MaxResponseSize` | property, read/write | `MaxResponseSize As Long` |
| `MaxUrlLen` | property, read/write | `MaxUrlLen As Long` |
| `NumAvoidPatterns` | property, read-only | `NumAvoidPatterns As Long (read-only)` |
| `NumFailed` | property, read-only | `NumFailed As Long (read-only)` |
| `NumOutboundLinks` | property, read-only | `NumOutboundLinks As Long (read-only)` |
| `NumSpidered` | property, read-only | `NumSpidered As Long (read-only)` |
| `NumUnspidered` | property, read-only | `NumUnspidered As Long (read-only)` |
| `PreferIpv6` | property, read/write | `PreferIpv6 As Long` |
| `ProxyDomain` | property, read/write | `ProxyDomain As String` |
| `ProxyLogin` | property, read/write | `ProxyLogin As String` |
| `ProxyPassword` | property, read/write | `ProxyPassword As String` |
| `ProxyPort` | property, read/write | `ProxyPort As Long` |
| `ReadTimeout` | property, read/write | `ReadTimeout As Long` |
| `UpdateCache` | property, read/write | `UpdateCache As Long` |
| `UserAgent` | property, read/write | `UserAgent As String` |
| `WasRedirected` | property, read-only | `WasRedirected As Long (read-only)` |
| `WindDownCount` | property, read/write | `WindDownCount As Long` |
| `AddAvoidOutboundLinkPattern` | method | `AddAvoidOutboundLinkPattern(pattern As String)` |
| `AddAvoidPattern` | method | `AddAvoidPattern(pattern As String)` |
| `AddMustMatchPattern` | method | `AddMustMatchPattern(pattern As String)` |
| `AddUnspidered` | method | `AddUnspidered(url As String)` |
| `CanonicalizeUrl` | method | `CanonicalizeUrl(url As String) As String` |
| `ClearFailedUrls` | method | `ClearFailedUrls()` |
| `ClearOutboundLinks` | method | `ClearOutboundLinks()` |
| `ClearSpideredUrls` | method | `ClearSpideredUrls()` |
| `CrawlNext` | method | `CrawlNext() As Long` |
| `FetchRobotsText` | method | `FetchRobotsText() As String` |
| `GetAvoidPattern` | method | `GetAvoidPattern(ByVal index As Long) As String` |
| `GetBaseDomain` | method | `GetBaseDomain(domain As String) As String` |
| `GetFailedUrl` | method | `GetFailedUrl(ByVal index As Long) As String` |
| `GetOutboundLink` | method | `GetOutboundLink(ByVal index As Long) As String` |
| `GetSpideredUrl` | method | `GetSpideredUrl(ByVal index As Long) As String` |
| `GetUnspideredUrl` | method | `GetUnspideredUrl(ByVal index As Long) As String` |
| `GetUrlDomain` | method | `GetUrlDomain(url As String) As String` |
| `Initialize` | method | `Initialize(domain As String)` |
| `LoadTaskCaller` | method | `LoadTaskCaller(task As ChilkatTask) As Long` |
| `RecrawlLast` | method | `RecrawlLast() As Long` |
| `SkipUnspidered` | method | `SkipUnspidered(ByVal index As Long)` |
| `SleepMs` | method | `SleepMs(ByVal numMilliseconds As Long)` |

## Properties

### Spider.AbortCurrent

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · AbortCurrent · property · read/write · since 9.5.0.58`

```
AbortCurrent As Long
```

When set to `1`, causes the currently running method to abort. Methods that always finish quickly (i.e.have no length file operations or network communications) are not affected. If no method is running, then this property is automatically reset to `0` when the next method is called. When the abort occurs, this property is reset to `0`. Both synchronous and asynchronous method calls can be aborted. (A synchronous method call could be aborted by setting this property from a separate thread.)

### Spider.AvoidHttps

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · AvoidHttps · property · read/write`

```
AvoidHttps As Long
```

If set the 1 (true) the spider will avoid all HTTPS URLs. The default is 0 (false).

### Spider.CacheDir

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · CacheDir · property · read/write`

```
CacheDir As String
```

Specifies a cache directory to use for spidering. If either of the FetchFromCache or UpdateCache properties are true, this is the location of the cache to be used. Note: the Internet Explorer, Netscape, and FireFox caches are completely separate from the Chilkat Spider cache directory. You should specify a new and empty directory.

### Spider.ChopAtQuery

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · ChopAtQuery · property · read/write`

```
ChopAtQuery As Long
```

If equal to 1 (true), then the query portion of all URLs are automatically removed when adding to the unspidered list. The default value is 0 (false).

### Spider.ConnectTimeout

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · ConnectTimeout · property · read/write`

```
ConnectTimeout As Long
```

The maximum number of seconds to wait while connecting to an HTTP server.

### Spider.Domain

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · Domain · property · read-only`

```
Domain As String (read-only)
```

The domain name that is being spidered. This is the domain previously set in the Initialize method.

### Spider.FetchFromCache

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · FetchFromCache · property · read/write`

```
FetchFromCache As Long
```

If equal to 1 (true) then pages are fetched from cache when possible. If 0, the cache is ignored. The default value is 1. Regardless, if no CacheDir is set then the cache is not used.

### Spider.FinalRedirectUrl

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · FinalRedirectUrl · property · read-only · since 9.5.0.85`

```
FinalRedirectUrl As String (read-only)
```

If the last URL crawled was redirected (as indicated by the WasRedirected property), this property will contain the final redirect URL.

### Spider.HeartbeatMs

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · HeartbeatMs · property · read/write`

```
HeartbeatMs As Long
```

**Full documentation for this property (same in every language):** [Event Callback Examples](https://www.chilkatsoft.com/ai-docs/v/11.7.0/articles/event_callback_examples.md)

The interval in milliseconds between each `AbortCheck` event callback, which enables an application to abort certain method calls before they complete. **By default, HeartbeatMs is set to** `0`**, meaning no AbortCheck event callbacks will trigger.**

### Spider.LastFromCache

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · LastFromCache · property · read-only`

```
LastFromCache As Long (read-only)
```

Equal to 1 if the last page spidered was fetched from the cache. Otherwise equal to 0.

### Spider.LastHtml

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · LastHtml · property · read-only`

```
LastHtml As String (read-only)
```

The HTML text of the last paged fetched by the spider.

### Spider.LastHtmlDescription

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · LastHtmlDescription · property · read-only`

```
LastHtmlDescription As String (read-only)
```

The HTML META description from the last page fetched by the spider.

### Spider.LastHtmlKeywords

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · LastHtmlKeywords · property · read-only`

```
LastHtmlKeywords As String (read-only)
```

The HTML META keywords from the last page fetched by the spider.

### Spider.LastHtmlTitle

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · LastHtmlTitle · property · read-only`

```
LastHtmlTitle As String (read-only)
```

The HTML title from the last page fetched by the spider.

### Spider.LastUrl

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · LastUrl · property · read-only`

```
LastUrl As String (read-only)
```

The URL of the last page spidered.

### Spider.MaxResponseSize

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · MaxResponseSize · property · read/write`

```
MaxResponseSize As Long
```

The maximum HTTP response size allowed. The spider will automatically fail any pages larger than this size. The default value is 250,000 bytes.

### Spider.MaxUrlLen

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · MaxUrlLen · property · read/write`

```
MaxUrlLen As Long
```

The maximum URL length allowed. URLs longer than this are not added to the unspidered list. The default value is 200.

### Spider.NumAvoidPatterns

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · NumAvoidPatterns · property · read-only`

```
NumAvoidPatterns As Long (read-only)
```

The number of avoid patterns previously set by calling AddAvoidPattern.

### Spider.NumFailed

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · NumFailed · property · read-only`

```
NumFailed As Long (read-only)
```

The number of URLs in the object's failed URL list.

### Spider.NumOutboundLinks

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · NumOutboundLinks · property · read-only`

```
NumOutboundLinks As Long (read-only)
```

The number of URLs in the object's outbound links URL list.

### Spider.NumSpidered

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · NumSpidered · property · read-only`

```
NumSpidered As Long (read-only)
```

The number of URLs in the object's already-spidered URL list.

### Spider.NumUnspidered

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · NumUnspidered · property · read-only`

```
NumUnspidered As Long (read-only)
```

The number of URLs in the object's unspidered URL list.

### Spider.PreferIpv6

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · PreferIpv6 · property · read/write`

```
PreferIpv6 As Long
```

If `1`, then use IPv6 over IPv4 when both are supported for a particular domain. The default value of this property is `0`, which will choose IPv4 over IPv6.

### Spider.ProxyDomain

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · ProxyDomain · property · read/write`

```
ProxyDomain As String
```

The domain name of a proxy host if an HTTP proxy is used.

### Spider.ProxyLogin

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · ProxyLogin · property · read/write`

```
ProxyLogin As String
```

If an HTTP proxy is used and it requires authentication, this property specifies the HTTP proxy login.

### Spider.ProxyPassword

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · ProxyPassword · property · read/write`

```
ProxyPassword As String
```

If an HTTP proxy is used and it requires authentication, this property specifies the HTTP proxy password.

### Spider.ProxyPort

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · ProxyPort · property · read/write`

```
ProxyPort As Long
```

The port number of a proxy server if an HTTP proxy is used.

### Spider.ReadTimeout

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · ReadTimeout · property · read/write`

```
ReadTimeout As Long
```

The maximum number of seconds to wait when reading from an HTTP server.

### Spider.UpdateCache

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · UpdateCache · property · read/write`

```
UpdateCache As Long
```

If equal to 1 (true) then pages saved to the cache. If 0, the cache is ignored. The default value is 1. Regardless, if no CacheDir is set then the cache is not used.

### Spider.UserAgent

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · UserAgent · property · read/write`

```
UserAgent As String
```

The value of the HTTP user-agent header field to be sent with HTTP requests. This can be set to any desired value, but be aware that some websites may reject requests from unknown user agents.

### Spider.WasRedirected

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · WasRedirected · property · read-only · since 9.5.0.85`

```
WasRedirected As Long (read-only)
```

Indicates whether the last URL crawled was redirected. (`1` = yes, `0` = no)

### Spider.WindDownCount

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · WindDownCount · property · read/write`

```
WindDownCount As Long
```

The `wind-down` phase begins when this number of URLs has been spidered. When in the wind-down phase, no new URLs are added to the unspidered list. The default value is 0 which means that there is NO wind-down phase.

## Methods

### Spider.AddAvoidOutboundLinkPattern

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · AddAvoidOutboundLinkPattern · method`

```
AddAvoidOutboundLinkPattern(pattern As String)
```

Adds a wildcarded pattern to prevent collecting matching outbound link URLs. For example, if `*google*` is added, then any outbound links containing the word `google` will be ignored. The `*` character matches zero or more of any character.

### Spider.AddAvoidPattern

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · AddAvoidPattern · method`

```
AddAvoidPattern(pattern As String)
```

Adds a wildcarded pattern to prevent spidering matching URLs. For example, if `*register*` is added, then any url containing the word `register` is not spidered. The `*` character matches zero or more of any character.

### Spider.AddMustMatchPattern

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · AddMustMatchPattern · method`

```
AddMustMatchPattern(pattern As String)
```

Adds a wildcarded pattern to limit spidering to only URLs that match the pattern. For example, if `*/products/*` is added, then only URLs containing `/products/` are spidered. This is helpful for only spidering a portion of a website. The `*` character matches zero or more of any character.

### Spider.AddUnspidered

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · AddUnspidered · method`

```
AddUnspidered(url As String)
```

To begin spidering you must call this method one or more times to provide starting points. It adds a single URL to the object's internal queue of URLs to be spidered.

### Spider.CanonicalizeUrl

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · CanonicalizeUrl · method`

```
CanonicalizeUrl(url As String) As String
```

Canonicalizes a URL by doing the following:

- Drops username/password if present.
- Drops fragment if present.
- Converts domain to lowercase.
- Removes port 80 or 443
- Remove default.asp, index.html, index.htm, default.html, index.htm, default.htm, index.php, index.asp, default.php, .cfm, .aspx, ,php3, .pl, .cgi, .txt, .shtml, .phtml
- Remove www. from the domain if present.

Returns `Nothing` on failure

### Spider.ClearFailedUrls

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · ClearFailedUrls · method`

```
ClearFailedUrls()
```

Clears the object's internal list of URLs that could not be downloaded.

### Spider.ClearOutboundLinks

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · ClearOutboundLinks · method`

```
ClearOutboundLinks()
```

Clears the object's internal list of outbound URLs that will automatically accumulate while spidering.

### Spider.ClearSpideredUrls

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · ClearSpideredUrls · method`

```
ClearSpideredUrls()
```

Clears the object's internal list of already-spidered URLs that will automatically accumulate while spidering.

### Spider.CrawlNext

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · CrawlNext · method`

```
CrawlNext() As Long
```

Crawls the next URL in the internal list of unspidered URLs. The URL is moved from the unspidered list to the spidered list. Any new links within the same domain and not yet spidered are added to the unspidered list. (providing that they do not match `avoid` patterns, etc.) Any new outbound links are added to the outbound URL list. If successful, the HTML of the downloaded page is available in the LastHtml property. If there are no more URLs left unspidered, the method returns `0`. Information about the URL crawled is available in the properties LastUrl, LastFromCache, and LastModDate.

Async variant: `CrawlNextAsync` — same arguments, returns a `Task` (see Async variants below).

### Spider.FetchRobotsText

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · FetchRobotsText · method`

```
FetchRobotsText() As String
```

Returns the contents of the robots.txt file from the domain being crawled. This spider object will not crawl URLs excluded by robots.txt. If you believe the spider is not behaving correctly, please notify us at support@chilkatsoft.com and provide information detailing a case that allows us to reproduce the problem.

Returns `Nothing` on failure

Async variant: `FetchRobotsTextAsync` — same arguments, returns a `Task` (see Async variants below).

### Spider.GetAvoidPattern

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · GetAvoidPattern · method`

```
GetAvoidPattern(ByVal index As Long) As String
```

Returns the Nth avoid pattern previously added by calling AddAvoidPattern. Indexing begins at 0.

Returns `Nothing` on failure

### Spider.GetBaseDomain

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · GetBaseDomain · method`

```
GetBaseDomain(domain As String) As String
```

Returns the second-level + top-level domain of the `domain`. For example, if `domain` is `xyz.example.com`, this returns `example.com`. For some domains, such as `xyz.example.co.uk`, the top 3 levels are returned, such as `example.co.uk`.

Returns `Nothing` on failure

### Spider.GetFailedUrl

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · GetFailedUrl · method`

```
GetFailedUrl(ByVal index As Long) As String
```

Returns the Nth URL in the failed URL list. Indexing begins at 0.

Returns `Nothing` on failure

### Spider.GetOutboundLink

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · GetOutboundLink · method`

```
GetOutboundLink(ByVal index As Long) As String
```

Returns the Nth URL in the outbound link URL list. Indexing begins at 0.

Returns `Nothing` on failure

### Spider.GetSpideredUrl

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · GetSpideredUrl · method`

```
GetSpideredUrl(ByVal index As Long) As String
```

Returns the Nth URL in the already-spidered URL list. Indexing begins at 0.

Returns `Nothing` on failure

### Spider.GetUnspideredUrl

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · GetUnspideredUrl · method`

```
GetUnspideredUrl(ByVal index As Long) As String
```

Returns the Nth URL in the unspidered URL list. Indexing begins at 0.

Returns `Nothing` on failure

### Spider.GetUrlDomain

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · GetUrlDomain · method`

```
GetUrlDomain(url As String) As String
```

Returns the domain name part of a URL. For example, if the URL is `https://www.chilkatsoft.com/test.asp`, then `www.chilkatsoft.com` is returned.

Returns `Nothing` on failure

### Spider.Initialize

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · Initialize · method`

```
Initialize(domain As String)
```

Initializes the object to begin spidering a domain. Calling Initialize clears any patterns added via the AddAvoidOutboundLinkPattern, AddAvoidPattern, and AddMustMatchPattern methods. The domain name passed to this method is what is returned by the Domain property. The spider only crawls URLs within the same domain.

### Spider.LoadTaskCaller

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · LoadTaskCaller · method · since 9.5.0.80`

```
LoadTaskCaller(task As ChilkatTask) As Long
```

Loads the caller of the task's async method.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

### Spider.RecrawlLast

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · RecrawlLast · method`

```
RecrawlLast() As Long
```

Re-crawls the last URL spidered. This helpful when cookies set in a previous page load cause the page to be loaded differently the next time.

Async variant: `RecrawlLastAsync` — same arguments, returns a `Task` (see Async variants below).

### Spider.SkipUnspidered

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · SkipUnspidered · method`

```
SkipUnspidered(ByVal index As Long)
```

Moves a URL from the unspidered list to the spidered list. This allows an application to skip a specific URL.

### Spider.SleepMs

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · SleepMs · method`

```
SleepMs(ByVal numMilliseconds As Long)
```

Suspends the execution of the current thread until the time-out interval elapses.

## Events and callbacks

### Spider.AbortCheck (event)

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · AbortCheck · event`

```
AbortCheck(abort As Long)
```

Enables a method call to be aborted by triggering the AbortCheck event at intervals defined by the `HeartbeatMs` property. If HeartbeatMs is set to its default value of 0, no events will occur. For instance, set HeartbeatMs to 200 to trigger 5 AbortCheck events per second.

**VB6 Event callback implementation:**

**Important:** Event callbacks from ***asynchronous method calls*** are generally not possible from the ActiveX. See [VB6 Event Callbacks](https://www.chilkatsoft.com/vb6_event_callbacks.asp)

```vb
Dim WithEvents mySpider As ChilkatSpider

Private Sub mySpider_AbortCheck(abort As Long)

	'Insert application code here.

End Sub
```

### Spider.PercentDone (event)

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · PercentDone · event`

```
PercentDone(ByVal pctDone As Long, abort As Long)
```

This provides the percentage completion for any method involving network communications or time-consuming processing, assuming the progress can be measured as a percentage. This event is triggered only when it's possible and logical to express the operation's progress as a percentage. The `pctDone` argument will range from 1 to 100. For methods that finish quickly, the number of PercentDone callbacks may vary, but the final callback will have `pctDone` equal to 100. For longer operations, callbacks will not exceed one per percentage point (e.g., 1, 2, 3, ..., 98, 99, 100).

The PercentDone callback also acts as an `AbortCheck` event. For fast methods where PercentDone fires, an AbortCheck event may not trigger since the PercentDone callback already provides an opportunity to abort. For longer operations, where time between PercentDone callbacks is extended, AbortCheck callbacks enable more responsive operation termination.

To abort the operation, set the `abort` output argument to `1`. This will cause the method to terminate and return a failure status or corresponding failure value.

**VB6 Event callback implementation:**

**Important:** Event callbacks from ***asynchronous method calls*** are generally not possible from the ActiveX. See [VB6 Event Callbacks](https://www.chilkatsoft.com/vb6_event_callbacks.asp)

```vb
Dim WithEvents mySpider As ChilkatSpider

Private Sub mySpider_PercentDone(ByVal pctDone As Long, abort As Long)

	'Insert application code here.

End Sub
```

### Spider.ProgressInfo (event)

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · ProgressInfo · event`

```
ProgressInfo(ByVal name As String, ByVal value As String)
```

This event callback provides `tag name`/value pairs that detail what occurs during a method call. To discover existing tag names, create code to handle the event, emit the pairs, and review them. Most tag names are self-explanatory.

Note: Some Chilkat methods don't fire any ProgressInfo events.

**VB6 Event callback implementation:**

**Important:** Event callbacks from ***asynchronous method calls*** are generally not possible from the ActiveX. See [VB6 Event Callbacks](https://www.chilkatsoft.com/vb6_event_callbacks.asp)

```vb
Dim WithEvents mySpider As ChilkatSpider

Private Sub mySpider_ProgressInfo(ByVal name As String, ByVal value As String)

	'Insert application code here.

End Sub
```

### Spider.TaskCompleted (event)

`Chilkat 11.7.0 · activex · Spider · TaskCompleted · event`

```
TaskCompleted(task As ChilkatTask)
```

Called from the background thread when an asynchronous task completes.

**VB6 Event callback implementation:**

**Important:** Event callbacks from ***asynchronous method calls*** are generally not possible from the ActiveX. See [VB6 Event Callbacks](https://www.chilkatsoft.com/vb6_event_callbacks.asp)

```vb
Dim WithEvents mySpider As ChilkatSpider

Private Sub mySpider_TaskCompleted(task As ChilkatTask)

	'Insert application code here.

End Sub
```

## Async variants

Each returns a `Task` instead of the result and takes the same arguments as the synchronous method; run the task, wait for `Finished`, then read the result from the task. No new Async methods are added from 11.7.0 on.

```
CrawlNextAsync() As ChilkatTask
FetchRobotsTextAsync() As ChilkatTask
RecrawlLastAsync() As ChilkatTask
```

## Related classes

[`Task`](https://www.chilkatsoft.com/ai-docs/v/11.7.0/activex/classes/Task.md)