On Dasher?

[Megaclinium]

I'm periodically hit by bots with a UA of '-',
probably trying to make you not notice as next to referring page which could be a '-'.

However this last one originates from yahoo range.

68.180.211.xx

OrgName: Yahoo! Inc.
OrgID: YHOO
Address: 701 First Ave
City: Sunnyvale
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 94089
Country: US

NetRange: 68.180.128.0 - 68.180.255.255

Any idea why they are doing this?

[dstiles]

68.180.211.nnn is not a yahoo bot range - at least, not slurp. As with most larger engines, a lot of their IP range has nothing directly to do with crawling.

If you do an rDNS lookup on the actual IP it should show you what it really is for. That particular C-net range comprises betas, shops, video search (which may be some kind of bot but not identified as such) but is mostly answers and mobile. Again, these may be some kind of bot but if so they're not being honest about it.

I get a lot of yahoo accesses with absolutely no headers but rDNS returns of things like ycar1.mobile.ch1.yahoo.com. Since they have no UA or other headers they get blocked.

[keyplyr]

I allow blank referrers from the mobile Yahoo ranges which include the IP in OP. A rapidly increasing share of my traffic comes from mobile search including Yahoo.

[Megaclinium]

Thanks! I see '-' from alot of other addresses but not from yahoo range.