McAfee has released their report for The Web’s Most Dangerous Search Terms for 2009.
http://us.mcafee.com/en-us/local/docs/most_dangerous_searchterm_us.pdf
Deep dive with Hitwise data
Most of the keyword lists we used for this study are simplified by the people compiling these lists. The
lists group together related search phrases under a single representative word or phrase. For example,
“Miley Cyrus” is undoubtedly a popular search term. But so are “Miley Cyrus lyrics,” “Miley Cyrus
videos,” “Miley Cyrus and Nick Jonas,” and “Miley Cyrus pictures.” For Yahoo! and AOL, the only
search term to make their year end lists was the first—“Miley Cyrus.”
We also know that people pick search words and use search engines in sometimes unusual ways.
According to Google, the phrase “www google com” was searched approximately five million times on
Google itself!
To better capture this variety, McAfee used keyword variations from data company Hitwise1 to get a
more detailed picture of the nature of risk for certain keywords. If we look more closely at one phrase
and its variations, we can begin to understand more about search risk. These deep dives looked at the
25 most popular search word variations for 12 popular keywords in the United States.
Category: Maximum Risk, Average, Category Risk (Average)
Screensavers 59.1% 34.4%
Free Games 24.7% 6.8%
Work From Home 15.6% 3.1%
Rihanna 12.6% 2.4%
Webkinz 11.4% 1.9%
Powerball 9.3% 1.5%
iPhone 7.9% 1.2%
Jonas Brothers 7.9% 1.2%
Twilight 6.8% 0.9%
Barack Obama 6.2% 0.7%
Taxes 4.9% 0.4%
Viagra 1.6% 0.1%
1 Disclosure: McAfee is a customer of Hitwise. We pay for access to their data.
According to Google, the phrase
“www google com” was searched
approximately five million times
on Google itself!
10
Report The Web’s Most Dangerous Search Terms
Work from home scams
The chance to make good money while you “work from home” lures many people to their first run in
with Internet scammers. Work from home schemes are so popular, the Federal Trade Commission has a
consumer bulletin on it. And with the economic crisis, even more unwitting consumers are tempted to
give these scams a try.
But that is a huge gamble. According to Hitwise, these are the most popular variations of that search,
ranked by their maximum risk as defined by McAfee.
Keyword Variations
Maximum Risk
(Average)
Category Risk
(Average)
free work from home 40.0% 11.4%
work from home for free 40.0% 9.7%
work from home free 40.0% 11.2%
work from home ideas 25.0% 5.6%
free work from home jobs 20.0% 4.0%
legit work from home 20.0% 2.6%
work from home stuffing envelopes 20.0% 3.2%
work from home opportunities 15.4% 1.8%
work from home data entry 14.3% 2.6%
online jobs work from home 13.3% 2.3%
work from home jobs 13.3% 1.3%
work from home online jobs 13.3% 3.0%
work from home moms 12.5% 1.4%
best work from home jobs 10.0% 1.1%
real work from home jobs 10.0% 1.0%
work from home 10.0% 1.2%
envelope stuffing work from home 9.1% 1.2%
how to work from home 9.1% 2.5%
work from home no fees 9.1% 1.9%
data entry work from home 8.3% 1.6%
legitimate work from home 8.3% 1.0%
researcher work from home positions 8.3% 1.7%
work from home online 8.3% 2.2%
legitimate work from home jobs 6.7% 0.9%
legit work from home jobs 6.3% 0.5%
Work from home searches can be as much as four times more risky than the average for all popular
terms. And on average, these searches are 50% more risky than other popular terms. What kinds of risk
do users expose themselves to when they search for work from home opportunities?
Rebateprocessorjobs.com makes guarantees about income that can be earned simply by filling out
forms, after paying the site owner a $39 fee. We rate the site yellow (use caution) for making misleading
claims. One of our user reviewers alleges that in order to collect the rebate, “You must first sell a
product, then offer a rebate on your own product. You process your own rebate, and then you get
paid.” In other words, you will spend more money than the rebate you receive is worth.
McAfee searched for more than 2,600 popular keywords. For each keyword, we examined the first five
pages of results across each of five major search engines. On average, each keyword generated a little
more than 250 results. Overall, we examined more than 413,000 unique URLs (web addresses). We
assigned each keyword a category and a country and then ranked them by the risk of their resulting
URLs. In addition, using data from Hitwise, a search intelligence company, we conducted much deeper
dives into specific keywords.
Keywords were ranked in two ways: 1) the average risk of all results and 2) the maximum risk of the
riskiest page of results.
• Overall, the average risk level of all results pages was just 1.7%. In other words, in a list of 250 results,
just over four were risky.
• However, when we averaged the most risky pages (the page from each keyword search that had the
most risky results), the average risk shot up to 10.0%. In other words, in a list of 250 results, just over
25 were risky.
• The categories with the worst maximum risk profile were lyrics keywords (26.3%) and phrases that
include the word “free” (21.3%). If a consumer landed at the riskiest search page for a typical lyrics
search, one of four results would be risky.
• The categories with the worst average risk profile were also lyrics sites (5.1%) and “free” sites (7.3%).
• The categories with the safest risk profile were health-related search terms and searches concerning
the recent economic crisis. The maximum risk on a single page of queries on the economy was 3.5%
and only 0.5% risky across all results. Similarly, even the worst page for health queries had just 4.0%
risky sites and just 0.4% risk overall.
• We used Hitwise to generate a detailed list of keyword variations for 12 search terms. As defined by
McAfee, the riskiest set of keyword variations was “screensavers” with a maximum risk of 59.1%
and an average risk of 34.4%, substantially higher than the study averages of 10.0% and 1.7%.
Surprisingly, searches using the keyword “Viagra,” a popular keyword that is a frequent “visitor” in
our spam filters, yielded the fewest risky sites.
• Keywords popular in non-U.S. countries were significantly riskier than those popular in the United
States. 14 countries had keyword lists that exposed users to a higher maximum risk than average,
including the Czech Republic (14.2%) and Brazil (12.1%). And 12 countries were overall riskier than
the average, including Mexico (1.9%) and India (1.8%). These findings may prove to be anomalies, but
if subsequent studies confirm them, this could be early evidence of a troubling new trend of scammers
targeting non-U.S. victims.
I need money, and how to make money fast with personal loans.
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