Starting some time in January, we began to see reports in the Google Web Search Help forums about people seeing weird search history show up in their web history on Google. The keywords that were showing up were for the search term [Na Pohybel Janas]. Many users started complaining that they were seeing this query in their search history.
In fact, the Sydney Morning Herald covered this in the morning, with no real answers.
Google Insights showed a spike in searches for the term. Here is a picture:
Now you see the traffic just died recently, but why?
Where did this traffic come from? The break down is interesting:
Watch the video of the geomapping of these searches over time:
Sydney Morning Herald suggests theories:
Using online translation tools reveals that, in Polish, the term means "Death to Janas". Janas is a Polish and Czech name, and it is also believed to be a term of endearment."I found that Janas is a female name that in Czechoslovakian, Polish, and Dutch means 'God's Gracious Gift' and in Arabic it means 'Harvest of Fruit'," wrote one blogger who investigated the mystery.
Combining the Polish meaning of Janas with the Polish translation of the phrase gives the literal translation "Death to God's gracious gift".
They weren't able to get a good comment or statement from Google on what is going on here, but whatever it was, it is no longer happening.
But fake search history showing up in people's search history on Google is nothing new. It is likely that these accounts were compromised, in some way, but why? Why for a query like Na Pohybel Janas?
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help .
