Huge spike in Google Advertising & Marketing Index since 22nd August

The top components of this index [1] are dominated by queries related to Jaycee Dugard [2]. A plot of these queries shows a jump from obscurity to popular starting on the 26th [3]. Why these are part of the advertising and marketing index is unknown.

[1: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=25&geo=US&... ]

[2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaycee_Dugard ]

[3: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=jaycee%2Cjaycee%20d... ]

These bundles of keywords are generally pretty imprecise and likely based on some of the AdSense lexicon clusters. Undoubtedly a few erroneous words, timed with something like a Coke promo or book launch or whatever would cause this kind of bump.

For example, if there was an author named John Lufthansa launching a book, that would likely also trigger a jump in the air travel trends, erroneously, as users search for just the last name.

I bet the spike has to do with the changes in the FTC rules for robocalls. As of Sept 1st, pre-recorded calls require the telemarketers to have written consent from consumers or face a fine of up to $16,000 per call. I started hearing about this change on the news in the last week or two and I bet the spike is dominated by the "do not call" term as people are looking for more information on what kind of calls they can look forward to not getting. More info near the end of this FTC press release: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/09/twi.shtm

[Edit] Should have taken a minute to finish reading the stats and not just look at the pretty graph. ynniv looks right about the Jaycee Dugard search being included. Why that's in these stats is a mystery of the google...

Looks anomalous, but there are 9 data points in the surge.

If you look at the rising searches term on this page it looks like it was all because of some coke rewards program:

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=25&geo=US&...

lower right hand side.

Well, that was the day my company's new site (smartpress.com) started its adwords campaign, but somehow I doubt that had anything to do with it.