ncgimaker - 9:38 pm on Mar 9, 2005 (gmt 0)

Is it just me that doesn't understand what the problem is?

Users search for "relaxation widgets for fans of the orient", and a web site sells "fluffy 'hello kitty' soft waddgets", unless the site also plants the keywords "can be used as relaxation widgets for fans of the orient" there is no way for a search engine to bridge that gap.

Imagine you relied on links alone to bridge that gap, a typical mid sized site may have 500 inbound links, and perhaps 2000 relevent phrases, so each inbound link would have to cover the 4 phrases which is implausible.

Here Google used 5 or 6 phrases to explain what this page was about, but they were all on topic and relevant. It made the title good for search engines and bad for users, so they delivered a simpler title to users. Good!

Doesn't it only become spam when they deliver *misleading* information and *misleading* titles to the search engine?

Surely its not whether they are trying to deceive the search engine, its whether they are trying to deceive the *searcher*!