In a similar vein, I used to wonder how google would send out probes to all the web sites that I visited - usually within a few minutes of my going to these web sites. I eventually realized it was the google toolbar watching my hopping habits and telling the master google bots to chase along after me on their own, to see what interesting tidbits they could find for themselves. I suspect many browser toolbars do this sort of thing. Google Chrome likely does it without any toolbars added on. IE? Firefox? Anyone know?