Re: Lycos' HEAD vs. GET

David Banes (dbanes@ozemail.com.au)
Sun, 24 Nov 1996 17:14:54 +1100


Otis Gospodnetic wrote:
>
> I looked at our access logs here and noticed that Lycos' Web Robot(s??) uses
> GET to request all non-image files/documents (.html. .txt, .ps....) and uses
> HEAD to request various image files (.gif, .jpeg...)
>
> what I don't understand - why doing even HEAD on the image files ? What is
> the benefit of verifying the existance of images on the Web ? I can't think
> of any .....
>
> Does anyone know the reasoning behind Lycos' HEAD requests for images ?

Yes, Lycos indexes image files, so you can search for them, it's a new
gimmick they have to hook users. I'm guessing that they actuallt index
the alt="This is an Image of a house" element to the "img src=" tag.

David Banes.
http://www.coolbananas.com.au/~dbanes

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