Mediapartners-Google Bot & 404s

[venti]

We occasionally see the Mediapartners-Google bot request different variations of a URL all of which are 404s. When I look in the log file I see no other requests (from users) that match what the Mediapartner bot is requesting. I am curious if 1) anyone else has this happen and 2) what they think it may be for? We have verified these requests come from Google IPs.

Correct URL:
www.example.com/mypath-here

Example Requests:
www.example.com/m
www.example.com/mypath-he
www.example.com/mypath

[jimbeetle]

Possibly a malformed URL sent by the AdSense js?

[june5]

Hello. I see this too and believe it is normal and read somewhere (but can't find it now) that the Mediapartners bot occasionally garbles up urls to check that you are serving 404s properly.

[himalayaswater]

I've noticed that it was fack Mediapartners bot from Russian ISP. Just checkout IP.