Final thoughts on Michelleista

As michelleista fades from Google's Hot Trends, I'll give you my hypothesis as to how this search made it to #2 for June 16.

"Michelleista" is associated with "Michartwurk," the screen name of someone who has posted adult-oriented spam on several websites. Michartwurk's Wikipedia account was apparently created in the past day -- and then blocked as an "attack account."

Without knowing the specifics -- and without knowing much about hacking -- I believe that Google was subject to an "attack" of multiple searches by "Michartwurk." Perhaps the searches were sent through some kind of anonymizer software, which make it seem to Google that the searches were coming from many IP addresses in the U.S. (I presume that hundreds of searches on one day for the same phrase from a single IP address would count as just one search on Hot Trends.)

If I'm right, then we can expect this sort of thing again. Please let me know if you notice an inexplicable top-rising search.