There’s plenty left to say about the mudslinging battle that happened between Google and Bing recently — and it’s even possible that the companies will continue to duke it out in upcoming statements. However, the press seems to be siding primarily with Google, who’s compilation of evidence against Bing strongly indicates that Bing really was pulling data from the Google SERP. One of the ways that Google worked to prove this was “hiybbprqag” — a term that is now getting some definite media attention.
What is “hiybbprqag”? Prior to accusing Bing of copying their search engine results, Google wanted to be sure that those accusations could be backed up. While they noticed some abnormalities in existing search results that could be tracked and presented, they wanted to present something even more solid. To do this, they invented several words, including “mbzrxpgjys,” “juegosdeben1ogrande,” and of course “hiybbprqag.” Google then loaded an unrelated site manually into their SERP for these terms. After a couple months of no results from Bing, the Microsoft search engine result was topped with the loaded, bogus site.
To Google, this was more than bizarre: It was hard evidence. At least some agree, including Stephen Colbert, who spoke about the events and the term at some length. Colbert has even given a definition to the term. “Apparently,” he stated, “hiybbprqag is a word meaning ‘you got served.'” He then concludes the segment by saying, “to all my friends at Bing — and I mean this, guys —hiybbprqag.”
This isn’t the only popular attention received by the gibberish terms. Other news sources who reported on hiybbprqag include CBS and TechCrunch. A site was even set up on the “hiybbprqag.com” domain page, apparently registered by a Google employee the day the mudslinging started, which has since been redirected to the Google Jobs page.
