Does Google have a mobile crawler?

If so do I have the right UA?

[GaryK]

Someone who downloads my files just submitted a new user agent that claims to be Googlebot-Mobile. I'm embarrassed to say this is the first I've heard of it despite having several .mobi domains, so that makes me wonder if it's legit. The DoCoMo stuff really makes me wonder cause that's decidedly un-Google-like and usually indicates the Japanese mobile operator NTT DOCOMO. The person who submitted it didn't even do a rDNS and no longer has the IP Address. So I need to ask if you all can confirm this is in fact Googlebot-Mobile. Thanks.

DoCoMo/2.0 N905i(c100;TB;W24H16) (compatible; Googlebot-Mobile/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

[GaryK]

I'm in Miami, Florida. What's your general location in the UK? I goto London several times a year.

[dstiles]

South-west.

I'm not sure if the googlebot IPs exhibit the same problem as non-google IPs that I check; it was a general observation about rDNS lookup delays. The google non-bot IPs never seem to resolve, though, which makes it very tempting to block them. And I probably would if they didn't bring in apparently legit translation traffic.

[GaryK]

Apparently this is also a Googlebot-Mobile crawler:

SAMSUNG-SGH-E250/1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 UP.Browser/6.2.3.3.c.1.101 (GUI) MMP/2.0 (compatible; Googlebot-Mobile/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

crawl-66-249-71-86.googlebot.com

[Vimes]

hehe, as long as they set their darn dns servers on the ip addresses I'm not bothered i haven't got any mobile pages and if they continue to "forget" to add this they are going to keep getting blocked :)

Come on G you advise us to follow a precedent and then don't follow up on it :p I'm assuming that eventually they will rectify this problem.

Thanks for everyone's post on this its eased my nervous thoughts.

Vimes

[GaryK]

Can anyone else confirm the other two Googlebot Mobile crawlers have disappeared, having been replaced by just the new Samsung one I posted above?

That's what two webmasters have told me they're seeing this past week. One of those webmasters runs a site that documents mobile crawler behavior.

[Samizdata]

I offer these observations from my logs:

The DoCoMo Googlebot is still very active but has returned to the 66.249 range.

The Samsung Googlebot appears to have replaced the Nokia one on or about 1st February.

I will not speculate on what this may signify, but I had to take no action.

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[GaryK]

Thanks.

Is it alright to call you Sam? Or do you prefer ... ;)

[Samizdata]

Sam is fine - I have been called a lot worse.

Mind you, I probably deserved it some of the time.

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