PostRank

[JAB Creations]

User Agent: PostRank/2.0 (postrank.com; 1 subscribers)
IP: 75.101.247.nnn
IP Resolves: ec2-75-101-247-nnn.compute-1.amazonaws.com

This thing visited a non-existent forum based URL (of an old forum software that I took down over a year ago). It visits every now and then. Looking at their site however they don't look like they actually provide direct consumer based feed software of any kind. Doing a site search for the forums I came across some posts with people saying there's a lot of bad bots coming from amazonaws. Is this some sort of shameless referrer spam or am I missing something here?

Here is what I have logged so far this month...

67.202.24.nnn - - [01/Nov/2010:01:08:35 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [02/Nov/2010:01:09:05 +0000] GET
67.202.24.nnn - - [03/Nov/2010:01:13:49 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [04/Nov/2010:01:18:24 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [05/Nov/2010:01:22:22 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [06/Nov/2010:01:23:39 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [07/Nov/2010:01:24:38 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [08/Nov/2010:01:26:18 +0000] GET
174.129.136.nnn - - [09/Nov/2010:01:27:09 +0000] GET
174.129.136.nnn - - [10/Nov/2010:01:28:01 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [11/Nov/2010:01:28:52 +0000] GET
174.129.136.nnn - - [12/Nov/2010:02:23:15 +0000] GET
174.129.136.nnn - - [13/Nov/2010:05:48:52 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [14/Nov/2010:06:02:19 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [15/Nov/2010:06:05:33 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [16/Nov/2010:06:07:40 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [17/Nov/2010:06:09:24 +0000] GET
67.202.24.nnn - - [18/Nov/2010:06:10:33 +0000] GET
174.129.136.nnn - - [19/Nov/2010:06:18:13 +0000] GET
67.202.24.nnn - - [20/Nov/2010:06:20:20 +0000] GET
67.202.24.nnn - - [21/Nov/2010:06:22:15 +0000] GET
204.236.254.nnn - - [22/Nov/2010:02:47:44 +0000] HEAD
204.236.254.nnn - - [22/Nov/2010:02:47:44 +0000] HEAD
204.236.254.nnn - - [22/Nov/2010:02:47:45 +0000] HEAD
204.236.254.nnn - - [22/Nov/2010:02:47:45 +0000] HEAD
67.202.24.nnn - - [22/Nov/2010:06:26:42 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [23/Nov/2010:06:30:28 +0000] GET
75.101.247.nnn - - [24/Nov/2010:06:35:34 +0000] GET

The extra hits on the 22nd were associated with Twitterbot though I thought I'd include those hits as well. It might be legitimate referrers from the URL where someone might have subscribed to one of my RSS feeds and thus sending the HEAD request to that particular URL. Thoughts please?

- John

[Pfui]

"PostRank/2.0 (postrank.com)" hits my sites, files and root, only via two amazonaws.com Hosts and then only in a Twitter swarm. It never asks for robots.txt, is always undeterred by 403s, and only hits via HEAD.

When it hits, it's to the same file in multiples of four or eight hits, often many times a day. Here's a small example 'set' of hits, one of 26-plus, post-tweet sets this month:

ec2-204-236-254-109.compute-1.amazonaws.com [05 Nov: 22:22:49] HEAD /dir1/file1.html
ec2-204-236-254-109.compute-1.amazonaws.com [05 Nov: 22:23:00] HEAD /dir1/file1.html
ec2-204-236-206-79.compute-1.amazonaws.com [05 Nov: 22:23:02] HEAD /dir1/file1.html
ec2-204-236-206-79.compute-1.amazonaws.com [05 Nov: 22:23:03] HEAD /dir1/file1.html

Oh, and PostRank almost always has a fellow amazonaws.com traveler, another HEAD hitter: "PycURL"
(Hits currently alternate versions: "PycURL/7.19.5" and "PycURL/7.18.2")

Seeing as how PostRank's (& PycURL's) benefits to me are nil, it remains just another blockworthy denizen of the cesspool that is AWS...

amazonaws.com plays host to wide variety of bad bots [webmasterworld.com]

[keyplyr]

First sighting was Feb 2008, been a consistent pest since then. I saw it moved to EC2 a few months ago.