It has to be a real term otherwise it doesn't test shit. In the real world you need relevant links, not just a bunch of horseshit spam that has nothing to do with anything.
E.g, let's assume that the term is "Apocalypse 2012" - in that case I am going to spend energy looking at footprints that'll get me links from those already in that niche. Now let's assume the term is "tencentpiece likes to cone all day long", instead of trying to find anything relevant (because there isn't anything, apart from that video) I am just going to mass spam and blog network the shit out of that term.