victor - 7:57 am on Feb 23, 2005 (gmt 0)

Googlebot started rampaging across one of my sites at that sort of rate a few months ago.

I emailed Google and told them to behave or be banned.

They emailed back an apology, and all has been well since.

Their bots can be as buggy as their SERPs. If you don't tell them the problem, they may not notice it themslves.