New York, New York - Since The New York Times bought Wordle in late January, some players have become convinced the viral word game has become more difficult than ever.

While that claim remains unproven, a new study surprisingly shows that cheating while playing Wordle has become more prevalent since the Times' takeover.

WordFinderX, a word games reference tool, conducted a study using Google Trends data to show just how many people are searching for the answer to the day’s Wordle. According to the study, which looked at data through February 20, Google searches for "today’s Wordle" increased by 196% since The New York Times bought the free game.

Search interest for the day’s Wordle had the largest one week increase from February 6 to 13, when interest jumped from nearly 70 on Google’s popularity scale to 100.

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The New York Times bought Wordle on January 31, and the Wordle domain officially redirected to a Times website on February 10.

The two most difficult words — and most popular days for cheating — for players appear to be February 15’s "AROMA" and February 19’s "SWILL."

Cheaters also commonly play in the morning, according to the study, which says the searches were most often done between 7 and 8 AM.

The graph provided by the study does indicate that cheating has become more prevalent since the New York Times takeover, but it also may be due to the game's rising popularity — since more people playing means more opportunities to cheat.

Regardless, it does appear that cheating at the simple word game has increased, especially since the start of February.