Is this something new with AOL?

Opening index.html w/ 8 various IP Numbers!

[pendanticist]

All this, in four seconds!?

205.188.209.43 - - [25/Apr/2003:17:58:53 -0700] "GET /gifs/familyfriendly120x60.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 3357 "http://www.blahblah.com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 8.0; Windows 98; Q312461; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"
205.188.208.103 - - [25/Apr/2003:17:58:53 -0700] "GET /gifs/Untitled2.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 1610 "http://www.blahblah.com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 8.0; Windows 98; Q312461; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"
205.188.209.102 - - [25/Apr/2003:17:58:53 -0700] "GET /gifs/ssurf.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 2107 "http://www.blahblah.com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 8.0; Windows 98; Q312461; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"
205.188.209.73 - - [25/Apr/2003:17:58:54 -0700] "GET /gifs/lo-025.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 4162 "http://www.blahblah.com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 8.0; Windows 98; Q312461; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"
205.188.209.103 - - [25/Apr/2003:17:58:55 -0700] "GET /gifs/award3.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 4489 "http://www.blahblah.com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 8.0; Windows 98; Q312461; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"
205.188.208.69 - - [25/Apr/2003:17:58:55 -0700] "GET /gifs/surfsquare.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 1743 "http://www.blahblah.com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 8.0; Windows 98; Q312461; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"
205.188.209.37 - - [25/Apr/2003:17:58:56 -0700] "GET /gifs/railicon.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 1594 "http://www.blahblah.com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 8.0; Windows 98; Q312461; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"
205.188.208.44 - - [25/Apr/2003:17:58:56 -0700] "GET /gifs/youarehere.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 2952 "http://www.blahblah.com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 8.0; Windows 98; Q312461; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"
205.188.208.7 - - [25/Apr/2003:17:58:57 -0700] "GET /gifs/hlbutton.gif HTTP/1.0" 200 2265 "http://www.blahblah.com/" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; AOL 8.0; Windows 98; Q312461; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"

Seems kinda odd. Even MS-WNI (Microsoft WebTV Inc.) doesn't throw this many proxies.

Pendanticist.

[pixel_juice]

I could be wrong, but aren't all those requests for images? AOL proxies have always done this, and it reaks havoc on log analysers...

[jdMorgan]

Yup, normal.

They can't do anything "the usual way" - Nope, they're AOL!

Jim

[pendanticist]

Yepper pixel_juice! All images/logos.

<Yikes!> That would be a toughie.

You have a point there, Jim! <chuckle>

It used to drive me nutz with all those inferences to "AOL Keyword blah blah" on many Television programs.

AAaaaGgggggHHhhhh!

Coming off like they invented keywords. Then I talked with an older AOL'er and he explained the results were all paid-for keywords and the light got brighter.

At least that seems to have gone by the way-side. :)

Gosh, on the Internet since '98 and this is my first AOL'er? Nahhhhhhhhhhhh....

Couldn't be.

Uh, could it? <-Rhetorical Question.

Pendanticist.

[jdMorgan]

P,

Look at your site's contents and it's target audience.
Then watch an AOL commercial and identify their target audience.
>> brighter
No, not them...

Jim

[aspdaddy]

>it reaks havoc on log analysers...

And its getting worse in the UK with AOL pushing Broadband at joe public. So how to overcome it? IP/AGENT is how most analysers sessionize, but this fails for AOL.

From my logs, (& pendanticist's example) looks like AOL proxies are all class C Addresses, and they usually use proxies on two contiguous networks for each request. Anyone else see this?

[sullen]

Don't even get me started on AOL.

Not only do they mess up your stats like this, they also re-compress any images they find - so all your great-looking well-optimised images will look rubbish.

The only solution to the stats things is to code your own cookie-based tracking system (and then filter out people with cookies turned off in the results) or code your own log-analyser that treats treats AOL hits as a single session where the browser matches the other hits. Neither 100% accurate, but what an you do?