PC World was the victim of some kind of prank – or huge mistake – yesterday, when a Google search for the company produced a surprising result (of the nasty variety for the retailer).

The Us vs Th3m website spotted that (via the Telegraph) if you did a search for “PC World,” the box that Google produces which contains info on the company, top-right in the browser, had been defaced. Specifically, the PC World logo had been swapped for an older version with a new slogan added underneath: “Like hell, but with worse customer service.”

The Internet was soon abuzz with this, and Mark Webb, the head of corporate social media for Dixons, picked up on it on Twitter, tweeting: “We're on it,” and, “Keeps us on our toes… The joys of social media.”

Presumably it was sorted pretty sharp-ish, and the normal PC World logo is certainly back in place on the Google search result page now.

In a further tweet, Webb added: “Hey ho. Customer satisfaction levels rising rapidly across the board, but we have some past reputation to deal with.”

As to exactly what happened, and whether this was a disgruntled ex-customer, or ex-employee, and what particular axe they had to grind… that remains unclear. As the Telegraph notes, something very odd has happened – in terms of a mistake, or a hack – for the image to be headlining on Google.

Another denizen of Twitter, Dave Neal, asked Webb: “Hello Mark, Is DSG commenting further on this? Any explanation as to what happened?”

Webb replied that he was “not commenting further.”