An Australian search engine expert living in New York believes he has got to the bottom of the mystery surrounding an obscure search term that inexplicably popped up in Google's fastest-rising search queries worldwide.
The term "na pohybel janas" has been the seventh fastest-rising search query on Google by Australians over the past 30 days, and has been equally if not more popular in other regions around the world.
In Australia it sits behind terms such as "cyclone yasi", "australian open", "biggest loser" and "egypt", but above "big day out", according to Google Insights for Search.
Frank Watson believes that, in the absence of an official explanation from Google, the spike in searches around the query can only be logically attributed to a virus designed to game Google by surreptitiously running searches on victims' computers.
Watson, who grew up in Brisbane but moved to New York 20 years ago, is a journalist at the blog Search Engine Watch and runs the search engine marketing company Kangamurra Media.
Na pohybel janas, which means "death to Janas" in Polish, is also the name of a Slavic rock band. Videos of the band can be found on YouTube and searching the term in Google either brings up information about the band or pages with discussions on how the term sprung up out of nowhere to hit Google's fastest-rising queries list.
"It's definitely something that's gaming the search engines," Watson said.
"The virus is testing the influence it has by promoting an obscure Polish band ... they know whatever it is works, they've done their little test market."
Some user reports have said searches for "na pohybel janas" appear in their search histories even though they have no recollection of conducting the searches.
Watson said this, coupled with the fact that there was a uniform spike in searches for the term around the world, suggested some sort of malware was involved. Before the recent spike, there were virtually no searches for the term.
In Australia it sits behind terms such as "cyclone yasi", "australian open", "biggest loser" and "egypt", but above "big day out", according to Google Insights for Search.
Frank Watson believes that, in the absence of an official explanation from Google, the spike in searches around the query can only be logically attributed to a virus designed to game Google by surreptitiously running searches on victims' computers.
Watson, who grew up in Brisbane but moved to New York 20 years ago, is a journalist at the blog Search Engine Watch and runs the search engine marketing company Kangamurra Media.
Na pohybel janas, which means "death to Janas" in Polish, is also the name of a Slavic rock band. Videos of the band can be found on YouTube and searching the term in Google either brings up information about the band or pages with discussions on how the term sprung up out of nowhere to hit Google's fastest-rising queries list.
"It's definitely something that's gaming the search engines," Watson said.
"The virus is testing the influence it has by promoting an obscure Polish band ... they know whatever it is works, they've done their little test market."
Some user reports have said searches for "na pohybel janas" appear in their search histories even though they have no recollection of conducting the searches.
Watson said this, coupled with the fact that there was a uniform spike in searches for the term around the world, suggested some sort of malware was involved. Before the recent spike, there were virtually no searches for the term.
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