GoogleBot in form filling shocker?

A log entry showing the site being changed to unstyled mode I just noticed in my logs that the GoogleBot has been using the Style Changer on this site! This is certainly not something which I was expecting to happen. Has anyone else had any experience of the GoogleBot selecting options from the forms on their sites, and then spidering the page (with GET variables) that the form would have led to?

66.249.71.72 - - [24/Feb/2005:20:28:04 +0000] "GET /style-changer.php?style=unstyled HTTP/1.0" 302 0 "-" "Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)"

So, yeah, there you go. Is this new behaviour or not?

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  1. by Chris Brunner on June 12, 2006 02:08 AM

    This is almost certainly because of users with the full-featured Google Toolbar installed. The toolbar tells Google what URLs the users are visiting, which sometimes include GET variables like the ones used on your site to switch styles. The Googlebot then spiders the URLs the users have visited to improve their index even more. Anyway, I’m fairly certain this is why the Googlebot seemed to be trying to adjust the styles on your site. -Chris Brunner

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