999999 showing up in error logs

What is it?

[4string]

I don't know if this is the right place to post this.

I'm getting 404 errors from someone searching my directories with:

directory1/999999
directory2/999999

Anyone know what they're up to?

[jdMorgan]

Without knowing whether those URLs even vaguely resemble any URLs on your site, it's hard to tell.

The most common causes for 'strange' requests are search engine spiders testing to see if your server will return a 404 response under any circumstances, or troublemakers looking for ways to hack into your server through open (unprotected) admin scripts.

Some sites that are script-driven (dynamic sites) won't return a 404 because there is no logic in the script to detect say, an invalid product id number, and return a 'not found' response. To a search engine, these sites represent an 'infinite' URL-space; Any URL they request from the server will get a 200-OK response. Obviously, a search engine must protect itself against getting caught up in such a site, because they will never 'reach the end' of it. So they limit the depth to which they spider these sites.

Jim

[4string]

I don't have any urls with numbers in them. They're all text and underscores with an html extension.

It returns a 404, but I like to know if there is a security hole to patch.

Thanks,
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