Google polyfill

[lucy24]

There doesn’t seem to be a subforum called “WTF, Google?” so let’s go with “... and anything Google not covered by another forum”.

Logs for https site, request via http (moderators, I think you can see why the exact IPs are appropriate here):

66.249.66.17 - - [15/Feb/2019:07:42:29 -0800] "HEAD /amp_preconnect_polyfill_404_or_other_error_expected._Do_not_worry_about_it?1539648000000 HTTP/1.1" 301 454 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html) Safari/537.36"

Redirect was not followed.

With logs for main site, the plot thickens:

66.249.64.111 - - [14/Feb/2019:17:54:25 -0800] "HEAD /amp_preconnect_polyfill_404_or_other_error_expected._Do_not_worry_about_it?1550188800000 HTTP/1.1" 404 295 "http://example.se/instruktioner/sd-hval-puke.php" "Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html) Safari/537.36" 
66.249.64.109 - - [14/Feb/2019:20:22:00 -0800] "HEAD /amp_preconnect_polyfill_404_or_other_error_expected._Do_not_worry_about_it?1548288000000 HTTP/1.1" 404 295 "http://example.se/instruktioner/sd-hval-puke.php" "Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html) Safari/537.36" 

66.249.64.111 - - [16/Feb/2019:21:30:30 -0800] "HEAD /amp_preconnect_polyfill_404_or_other_error_expected._Do_not_worry_about_it?1550188800000 HTTP/1.1" 404 295 "http://example.se/instruktioner/sd-hval-puke.php" "Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html) Safari/537.36" 

Since this is not exactly referer spam, I took the chance and had a look. Swedish page prominently featuring my No Hotlinks image, with top-of-page banner that says, among other things, “Hvis du er under 18, forlader dette websted!” This is not exactly Swedish--it’s bad Danish--but certainly agrees with the page text. (Not, ahem, with my hotlinked image, had anyone been able to see it. Matter of fact, the image is of Danish--not Swedish--text.)

:: scratching head ::

I don’t know about the rest of youse, but when Google says don’t worry about it . . . I worry.

[phranque]

from Malte Ubl (Tech lead of the AMP Project):

Preconnecting executes DNS lookup, TCP and SSL handshake. This saves 100+ms even on WIFI and can be seconds faster on a crappy mobile connection.

source: Not so micro optimizations [medium.com]

i agree if anything they should have used a more reassuring message in the requested resource path.

[blend27]

not youse but 'uuz', but... but it is a HEAD, why not drop HEAD all together?

[lucy24]

but it is a HEAD, why not drop HEAD all together?

Checking whether something exists takes less bandwidth than downloading it in its entirely.

I've seen another once since then, again with the whalepuke referer.

[tangor]

Another version of prefetch?

Love the assumption that our bandwidth is their's to play with.

[TorontoBoy]

Bizzare. But then again I have had both MS and Google try to break my security.

/amp_preconnect_polyfill_404_or_other_error_expected._Do_not_worry_about_it?

Mobile Safari bug?
[github.com...]

In Mobile Safari AMP pages that include <iframe>s appear to be making network requests to the follow path "/amp_preconnect_polyfill_404_or_other_error_expected._Do_not_worry_about_it". This can be observed by monitoring network traffic on the device. It will also show with great frequency in the network logs of servers delivering the <iframe>d experience.

Google might have found this in their logs and is trying to verify if such a URL exists?

[lucy24]

Gritting my teeth, I had another look at whalepuke's html, and found two separate references to the same image: one inside a script, and another in <amp-img> tags. Is this a thing? I'm certain I have never heard of it in my life. You can see the tenuous connection to mobile safari, though.

:: irrelevantly wondering why bad Danish ### would be located on a .se domain, or conversely why Swedish ### would be in bad Danish ::

[phranque]

Mobile Safari bug?

something observed in Mobile Safari is not necessarily a Mobile Safari bug.

Google might have found this in their logs and is trying to verify if such a URL exists?

it's all explained here:

from Malte Ubl (Tech lead of the AMP Project):

Preconnecting executes DNS lookup, TCP and SSL handshake. This saves 100+ms even on WIFI and can be seconds faster on a crappy mobile connection.

source: Not so micro optimizations [medium.com]