Android 4.4.4 Googlebot

[lucy24]

Can you spot the difference? Wasn't sure if this belongs in Google or SSID.

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/41.0.2272.96 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

vs.

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 4.4.4; Nexus 5 Build/KTU84P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/38.0.2125.102 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

The first is the ordinary Googlebot, mobile version, in use since mid-April 2016. (Before that, I think their UA involved iPhone.)

The second is not a former UA dredged up from ancient logs; it's a new Googlebot used for one specific purpose. This version makes full-spectrum page requests--with images and stylesheets--exactly like a human, with the expected referer, except that the requests are spaced a little further apart. To date I've only met it twice, within the past few weeks. Oddly, it was the same obscure page each time-- and, except for the HTML itself, no one file was requested on both visits. They may even have missed a few, leaving me wondering if I am to expect a third, mopping-up visit. The only script in this area is piwik, which is roboted-out, so I don't know whether they would have requested .js files.

[keyplyr]

. This version makes full-spectrum page requests--with images and stylesheets--exactly like a human, with the expected referer, except that the requests are spaced a little further apart

Is this coming from a verified *crawl* range or one of Google's for-rent ranges?

Odd that "Android 4.4.4" is being used since that build is several years old. It is still on a lot of phones, but older ones (Android 7.0 is on my phone.)

[lucy24]

Is this coming from a verified *crawl* range

Oh, yes, or they would never have gotten in. The usual 66.249.64etcetera.