diff --git a/docs/intro/overview.rst b/docs/intro/overview.rst
index 15b4efd45..7a38d4fcd 100644
--- a/docs/intro/overview.rst
+++ b/docs/intro/overview.rst
@@ -153,7 +153,7 @@ extracted item into a file using `pickle`_::
     import pickle
 
     class StoreItemPipeline(object):
-        def process_item(self, domain, response, item):
+        def process_item(self, spider, item):
             torrent_id = item['url'].split('/')[-1]
             f = open("torrent-%s.pickle" % torrent_id, "w")
             pickle.dump(item, f)
diff --git a/docs/intro/tutorial.rst b/docs/intro/tutorial.rst
index b5934fa0f..3fb965110 100644
--- a/docs/intro/tutorial.rst
+++ b/docs/intro/tutorial.rst
@@ -156,17 +156,17 @@ will get an output similar to this::
    [dmoz] INFO: Enabled downloader middlewares: ...
    [dmoz] INFO: Enabled spider middlewares: ...
    [dmoz] INFO: Enabled item pipelines: ...
-   [dmoz.org] INFO: Domain opened
+   [dmoz.org] INFO: Spider opened
    [dmoz.org] DEBUG: Crawled <http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Languages/Python/Resources/> from <None>
    [dmoz.org] DEBUG: Crawled <http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Languages/Python/Books/> from <None>
-   [dmoz.org] INFO: Domain closed (finished)
+   [dmoz.org] INFO: Spider closed (finished)
    [-] Main loop terminated.
 
 Pay attention to the lines containing ``[dmoz.org]``, which corresponds to
-our spider (identified by the domain "dmoz.org"). You can see a log line for each
-URL defined in ``start_urls``. Because these URLs are the starting ones, they
-have no referrers, which is shown at the end of the log line, where it says
-``from <None>``.
+our spider (identified by the domain ``"dmoz.org"``). You can see a log line
+for each URL defined in ``start_urls``. Because these URLs are the starting
+ones, they have no referrers, which is shown at the end of the log line,
+where it says ``from <None>``.
 
 But more interesting, as our ``parse`` method instructs, two files have been
 created: *Books* and *Resources*, with the content of both URLs.
@@ -445,7 +445,7 @@ creation step, it's in ``dmoz/pipelines.py`` and looks like this::
    # Define your item pipelines here
 
    class DmozPipeline(object):
-       def process_item(self, domain, item):
+       def process_item(self, spider, item):
            return item
 
 We have to override the ``process_item`` method in order to store our Items
@@ -461,7 +461,7 @@ separated values) file using the standard library `csv module`_::
        def __init__(self):
            self.csvwriter = csv.writer(open('items.csv', 'wb'))
         
-       def process_item(self, domain, item):
+       def process_item(self, spider, item):
            self.csvwriter.writerow([item['title'][0], item['link'][0], item['desc'][0]])
            return item
 
diff --git a/docs/topics/exporters.rst b/docs/topics/exporters.rst
index b9182223f..966724f89 100644
--- a/docs/topics/exporters.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/exporters.rst
@@ -51,19 +51,17 @@ Exporter to export scraped items to different files, one per spider::
            self.files = {}
 
        def spider_opened(self, spider):
-           domain = spider.domain_name
-           file = open('%s_products.xml' % domain, 'w+b')
-           self.files[domain] = file
+           file = open('%s_products.xml' % spider.domain_name, 'w+b')
+           self.files[spider] = file
            self.exporter = XmlItemExporter(file)
            self.exporter.start_exporting()
 
        def spider_closed(self, spider):
-           domain = spider.domain_name
            self.exporter.finish_exporting()
-           file = self.files.pop(domain)
+           file = self.files.pop(spider)
            file.close()
 
-       def process_item(self, domain, item):
+       def process_item(self, spider, item):
            self.exporter.export_item(item)
            return item
 
diff --git a/docs/topics/item-pipeline.rst b/docs/topics/item-pipeline.rst
index 3fb90ce39..ce465577f 100644
--- a/docs/topics/item-pipeline.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/item-pipeline.rst
@@ -24,11 +24,13 @@ Writing your own item pipeline
 Writing your own item pipeline is easy. Each item pipeline component is a
 single Python class that must define the following method:
 
-.. method:: process_item(domain, item)
+.. method:: process_item(spider, item)
 
-``domain`` is a string with the domain of the spider which scraped the item
+:param spider: the spider which scraped the item
+:type spider: :class:`~scrapy.spider.BaseSpider` object
 
-``item`` is a :class:`~scrapy.item.Item` with the item scraped
+:param item: the item scraped
+:type item: :class:`~scrapy.item.Item` object
 
 This method is called for every item pipeline component and must either return
 a :class:`~scrapy.item.Item` (or any descendant class) object or raise a
@@ -49,7 +51,7 @@ attribute), and drops those items which don't contain a price::
 
         vat_factor = 1.15
 
-        def process_item(self, domain, item):
+        def process_item(self, spider, item):
             if item['price']:
                 if item['price_excludes_vat']:
                     item['price'] = item['price'] * self.vat_factor
@@ -68,11 +70,11 @@ To activate an Item Pipeline component you must add its class to the
        'myproject.pipeline.PricePipeline',
    ]
 
-Item pipeline example with resources per domain
+Item pipeline example with resources per spider
 ===============================================
 
 Sometimes you need to keep resources about the items processed grouped per
-domain, and delete those resource when a domain finish.
+spider, and delete those resource when a spider finish.
 
 An example is a filter that looks for duplicate items, and drops those items
 that were already processed. Let say that our items has an unique id, but our
@@ -90,16 +92,16 @@ spider returns multiples items with the same id::
             dispatcher.connect(self.spider_closed, signals.spider_closed)
 
         def spider_opened(self, spider):
-            self.duplicates[spider.domain_name] = set()
+            self.duplicates[spider] = set()
 
         def spider_closed(self, spider):
-            del self.duplicates[spider.domain_name]
+            del self.duplicates[spider]
 
-        def process_item(self, domain, item):
-            if item.id in self.duplicates[domain]:
+        def process_item(self, spider, item):
+            if item.id in self.duplicates[spider]:
                 raise DropItem("Duplicate item found: %s" % item)
             else:
-                self.duplicates[domain].add(item.id)
+                self.duplicates[spider].add(item.id)
                 return item
 
 Built-in Item Pipelines reference
diff --git a/scrapy/contrib/itemsampler.py b/scrapy/contrib/itemsampler.py
index 026b4288a..60cd403f3 100644
--- a/scrapy/contrib/itemsampler.py
+++ b/scrapy/contrib/itemsampler.py
@@ -36,8 +36,8 @@ from scrapy.http import Request
 from scrapy import log
 from scrapy.conf import settings
 
-items_per_domain = settings.getint('ITEMSAMPLER_COUNT', 1)
-close_domain = settings.getbool('ITEMSAMPLER_CLOSE_DOMAIN', False)
+items_per_spider = settings.getint('ITEMSAMPLER_COUNT', 1)
+close_spider = settings.getbool('ITEMSAMPLER_CLOSE_SPIDER', False)
 max_response_size = settings.getbool('ITEMSAMPLER_MAX_RESPONSE_SIZE', )
 
 class ItemSamplerPipeline(object):
@@ -47,20 +47,19 @@ class ItemSamplerPipeline(object):
         if not self.filename:
             raise NotConfigured
         self.items = {}
-        self.domains_count = 0
+        self.spiders_count = 0
         self.empty_domains = set()
         dispatcher.connect(self.spider_closed, signal=signals.spider_closed)
         dispatcher.connect(self.engine_stopped, signal=signals.engine_stopped)
 
-    def process_item(self, item, spider):
-        domain = spider.domain_name
-        sampled = stats.get_value("items_sampled", 0, domain=domain)
-        if sampled < items_per_domain:
+    def process_item(self, spider, item):
+        sampled = stats.get_value("items_sampled", 0, domain=spider.domain_name)
+        if sampled < items_per_spider:
             self.items[item.guid] = item
             sampled += 1
-            stats.set_value("items_sampled", sampled, domain=domain)
-            log.msg("Sampled %s" % item, domain=domain, level=log.INFO)
-            if close_domain and sampled == items_per_domain:
+            stats.set_value("items_sampled", sampled, domain=spider.domain_name)
+            log.msg("Sampled %s" % item, spider=spider, level=log.INFO)
+            if close_spider and sampled == items_per_spider:
                 scrapyengine.close_spider(spider)
         return item
 
@@ -68,14 +67,15 @@ class ItemSamplerPipeline(object):
         with open(self.filename, 'w') as f:
             pickle.dump(self.items, f)
         if self.empty_domains:
-            log.msg("No products sampled for: %s" % " ".join(self.empty_domains), level=log.WARNING)
+            log.msg("No products sampled for: %s" % " ".join(self.empty_domains), \
+                level=log.WARNING)
 
     def spider_closed(self, spider, reason):
-        domain = spider.domain_name
-        if reason == 'finished' and not stats.get_value("items_sampled", domain=domain):
-            self.empty_domains.add(domain)
-        self.domains_count += 1
-        log.msg("Sampled %d domains so far (%d empty)" % (self.domains_count, len(self.empty_domains)), level=log.INFO)
+        if reason == 'finished' and not stats.get_value("items_sampled", domain=spider.domain_name):
+            self.empty_domains.add(spider.domain_name)
+        self.spiders_count += 1
+        log.msg("Sampled %d domains so far (%d empty)" % (self.spiders_count, \
+            len(self.empty_domains)), level=log.INFO)
 
 
 class ItemSamplerMiddleware(object):
@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ class ItemSamplerMiddleware(object):
             raise NotConfigured
 
     def process_spider_input(self, response, spider):
-        if stats.get_value("items_sampled", domain=spider.domain_name) >= items_per_domain:
+        if stats.get_value("items_sampled", domain=spider.domain_name) >= items_per_spider:
             return []
         elif max_response_size and max_response_size > len(response_httprepr(response)):  
             return []
@@ -100,7 +100,7 @@ class ItemSamplerMiddleware(object):
             else:
                 items.append(r)
 
-        if stats.get_value("items_sampled", domain=spider.domain_name) >= items_per_domain:
+        if stats.get_value("items_sampled", domain=spider.domain_name) >= items_per_spider:
             return []
         else:
             # TODO: this needs some revision, as keeping only the first item
diff --git a/scrapy/contrib/pipeline/__init__.py b/scrapy/contrib/pipeline/__init__.py
index 02d6b83cd..5801e86fc 100644
--- a/scrapy/contrib/pipeline/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/contrib/pipeline/__init__.py
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ class ItemPipelineManager(object):
             if not stages_left:
                 return item
             current_stage = stages_left.pop(0)
-            d = mustbe_deferred(current_stage.process_item, spider.domain_name, item)
+            d = mustbe_deferred(current_stage.process_item, spider, item)
             d.addCallback(next_stage, stages_left)
             return d
 
diff --git a/scrapy/contrib/pipeline/fileexport.py b/scrapy/contrib/pipeline/fileexport.py
index 461d6e492..d20b83c2a 100644
--- a/scrapy/contrib/pipeline/fileexport.py
+++ b/scrapy/contrib/pipeline/fileexport.py
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ class FileExportPipeline(object):
         self.exporter.start_exporting()
         dispatcher.connect(self.engine_stopped, signals.engine_stopped)
 
-    def process_item(self, domain, item):
+    def process_item(self, spider, item):
         self.exporter.export_item(item)
         return item
 
diff --git a/scrapy/contrib/pipeline/media.py b/scrapy/contrib/pipeline/media.py
index 16e11bef6..96c804be3 100644
--- a/scrapy/contrib/pipeline/media.py
+++ b/scrapy/contrib/pipeline/media.py
@@ -12,27 +12,26 @@ from scrapy.utils.misc import arg_to_iter
 class MediaPipeline(object):
     DOWNLOAD_PRIORITY = 1000
 
-    class DomainInfo(object):
+    class SpiderInfo(object):
         def __init__(self, spider):
-            self.domain = spider.domain_name
             self.spider = spider
             self.downloading = {}
             self.downloaded = {}
             self.waiting = {}
 
     def __init__(self):
-        self.domaininfo = {}
+        self.spiderinfo = {}
         dispatcher.connect(self.spider_opened, signals.spider_opened)
         dispatcher.connect(self.spider_closed, signals.spider_closed)
 
     def spider_opened(self, spider):
-        self.domaininfo[spider.domain_name] = self.DomainInfo(spider)
+        self.spiderinfo[spider] = self.SpiderInfo(spider)
 
     def spider_closed(self, spider):
-        del self.domaininfo[spider.domain_name]
+        del self.spiderinfo[spider]
 
-    def process_item(self, domain, item):
-        info = self.domaininfo[domain]
+    def process_item(self, spider, item):
+        info = self.spiderinfo[spider]
         requests = arg_to_iter(self.get_media_requests(item, info))
         dlist = []
         for request in requests:
@@ -83,7 +82,7 @@ class MediaPipeline(object):
 
             info.downloading[fp] = (request, dwld) # fill downloading state data
             dwld.addBoth(_downloaded) # append post-download hook
-            dwld.addErrback(log.err, domain=info.domain)
+            dwld.addErrback(log.err, spider=info.spider)
 
         # declare request in downloading state (None is used as place holder)
         info.downloading[fp] = None
diff --git a/scrapy/contrib_exp/pipeline/shoveitem.py b/scrapy/contrib_exp/pipeline/shoveitem.py
index 334c07993..869c62c58 100644
--- a/scrapy/contrib_exp/pipeline/shoveitem.py
+++ b/scrapy/contrib_exp/pipeline/shoveitem.py
@@ -27,11 +27,11 @@ class ShoveItemPipeline(object):
         dispatcher.connect(self.spider_opened, signal=signals.spider_opened)
         dispatcher.connect(self.spider_closed, signal=signals.spider_closed)
 
-    def process_item(self, domain, item):
+    def process_item(self, spider, item):
         guid = str(item.guid)
 
-        if guid in self.stores[domain]:
-            if self.stores[domain][guid] == item:
+        if guid in self.stores[spider]:
+            if self.stores[spider][guid] == item:
                 status = 'old'
             else:
                 status = 'upd'
@@ -39,17 +39,17 @@ class ShoveItemPipeline(object):
             status = 'new'
 
         if not status == 'old':
-            self.stores[domain][guid] = item
-        self.log(domain, item, status)
+            self.stores[spider][guid] = item
+        self.log(spider, item, status)
         return item
 
     def spider_opened(self, spider):
-        domain = spider.domain_name
-        uri = Template(self.uritpl).substitute(domain=domain)
-        self.stores[domain] = Shove(uri, **self.opts)
+        uri = Template(self.uritpl).substitute(domain=spider.domain_name)
+        self.stores[spider] = Shove(uri, **self.opts)
 
     def spider_closed(self, spider):
-        self.stores[spider.domain_name].sync()
+        self.stores[spider].sync()
 
-    def log(self, domain, item, status):
-        log.msg("Shove (%s): Item guid=%s" % (status, item.guid), level=log.DEBUG, domain=domain)
+    def log(self, spider, item, status):
+        log.msg("Shove (%s): Item guid=%s" % (status, item.guid), level=log.DEBUG, \
+            spider=spider)