(CNSNews.com) - Typing the search term "Arabian Gulf" into the Internet search engine Google brings up a list of results topped by a link to what looks like a standard "page unavailable" error message.

But it isn't an error message. Instead, the Web page says, "The gulf you are looking for is unavailable. No body of water by that name has ever existed. The correct name is Persian Gulf, which always has been, and will always remain, Persian."

Using a method known as "Google bombing," thousands of Iranian bloggers managed in late 2004 to manipulate the search engine results, pushing the "Arabian Gulf" search term to the top of the list -- a position it retains today.

The bloggers were upset by the National Geographic Society's decision to use the name Arabian Gulf - favored by a number of Arab states - in a new edition of its world atlas.

The society later backed down but, more than three years later, the question of what to call the strategic body of water separating Iran and the Arabian Peninsula remains a pressing one to many Iranians.

On Tuesday, Iran marks National Persian Gulf Day with ceremonies, academic discussions and a rally in front of the embassy of the United Arab Emirates, a country across the Gulf from Iran that has banned the use of the term Persian Gulf.

Many Iranians are highly sensitive about the terminology. The Persian Gulf has gone by that name, or variations of that name, for millennia, according to historians and cartographers. Persia is the former name for Iran.

Use of the name Arabian Gulf was primarily instigated in the last century by nationalist Arab regimes in Egypt and Iraq.

Speaking at a Tehran university Monday, deputy foreign minister Mohammad Bagheri attributed the naming dispute to a "plot" that had been launched about half a century ago and took hold during the rule of Egyptian president and pan-Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Some throw the net of blame wider.

"Arrogant world powers have tried to separate Persian Gulf from Iran by using a fake name to fulfill their ominous intentions in the region," Kazem Mousavi, the head of Great Islamic Encyclopedia Center - an Iranian scientific institute - was quoted by the official IRNA news agency Tuesday as saying.

"However, they must understand that Persian Gulf is an inseparable part of Iran," Mousavi said.

Earlier this month, Tehran took Google to task for using the label Arabian Gulf in its Google Earth program, and warned that it may take legal action.

Some news organizations, in an attempt at neutrality, simply use the term "the Gulf." That still irks Iranians, however. When The Economist in 2006 published an article and map referring to the Gulf instead of the Persian Gulf, Tehran banned distribution of the British publication inside Iran.

The U.S. State Department generally uses Persian Gulf, although the U.S. military uses both Arabian and Persian Gulf. Maps in the CIA World Factbook use Persian Gulf.

The name dispute was an issue for Iran well before the 1979 revolution ended the Shah's reign and brought Islamic hardliners to power in Tehran. During a meeting in 1974 with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto grumbled about "the stupid quarrel over the name of the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf."

Despite his obviously disparaging view of the matter, Bhutto knew what Pakistan's stance would be.

"If it comes to a crunch we will call it the Persian Gulf," he told Kissinger. "Iran is our neighbor. Saudi Arabia is far away."

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