Fallout From The MyDoom Search Engine Attack

On Monday, July 26, 2004, the major search engines were hit by a variant of the WebProWorld. Andy Beal would lead some to believe. However, according to Google's blog, their servers were not taken down; rather they blocked those who were infected with the virus and its automated search queries. From WebmasterWorld poster called "dataguy" observed: "Search engine traffic to my web sites are up about 15% today over a normal Monday, with an overall higher percentage coming from Google searches." Because Google seems to be the only search engine that suffered any server "downtime" (the other search engines appeared to have been slowed by the virus, whereas Google was the only one reported to have a server error page appear), many wondered what kind of impact this attack might have had on the revenue. jonathanleger at WebmasterWorld estimated the amount Google lost, based on last quarter's findings: "Google posted a profit of $79.1 million last quarter, that's $878,888.89 per day or $36,620.37 per hour. Based on that they've lost about $109,861.11 from the past three hours. How's that for statistics! :)" However, Joseph Morin, a moderator at the latest search news.