Is an English person “an unpleasant or stupid person”?
It’s certainly the case according to a Google search for the term “English Person”.
The top result for that phrase is a link to a Wikipedia page defining the word c*** (warning: link contains language some may find offensive).
The definition above is quoted from the Compact Oxford English dictionary.
The discovery has led to “English Person” trending on Twitter today with thousands of users expressing their astonishment – and in some instances amusement - at Google’s search result.
However, this isn’t the view of the search giant but a case of its search algorithms being deliberately manipulated.
The term for this is “Google bomb”.
It works by mischievous internet users linking sites littered with the required phrase – say through message board comments - back to the site they want Google to rank first.
One previous Google Bomb was the official site of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy being the result if you searched for “trou du cul du web” – which means “The A**hole of the Internet”.
Political Commentator Bill O’Reilly, meanwhile, was the victim of another prank that linked his official site to the phrase “terrorist sympathiser” and Tony Blair was linked to the word “liar” in a similar fashion.