Hundreds of GET / ~/ 404 entries - Anyone know what this might be?

hundreds of unusual 404 in log files

[SBAmerica]

For the past 10 days or so, we are getting hundreds per day of log entries that look like this:

2003-10-04 00:11:51 64.164.171.219 - W3SVC383 GUAN 66.165.91.107 80 GET / ~/ 404 123 4203 42 0 HTTP/1.1 ourdomainip -

This is always followed by:
2003-10-04 00:12:07 12.4.2.2 - W3SVC383 GUAN 66.165.91.107 80 GET / - 200 0 1560 189 0 HTTP/1.1 ourdomainip Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+5.5;+Windows+98) - -

There are no missing files on the page that would generate the 404. It seems to be more related to the weird call to the domain "GET / ~/". The requests are from completely different IP addresses - hardly any two alike - mostly North America.

Anyone who can help shed light - we very much appreciate.

[claus]

You could have a new link to your site on another, frequently visited site, only misspelled:

<a href="www.example.com/ ~/">your site</a>

You logfile format is not one i've seen before... does it include the referrer string or is that empty?

/claus

[SBAmerica]

Thanks for replying. Funny thing, there is never a referrer on these log entries. The logs do record referrers, but not from any of these hits. We also do not have any new referrers showing up that could account for a new link, as you wrote about, so I can't trace it to any particular website / domain referral.

[ses4j]

I think it may be related to:
[webmasterworld.com...]

The first line you mention I haven't seen, but the Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+5.5;+Windows+98) lines are all too familiar...

Scott