What is the purpose of "." inside nav links?

Is it an effort to stop spammers?

[Storyman]

Came across a site today where all of the navigation links had periods peppered throughout the words. For example the navigation bar at the top of this page would read: H.ome / F.orums I.ndex / The M.arketing W.orld, etc.

What does this accomplish?

Would it have something to do with spammer's bots? Or perhaps to keep the navigation from being indexed by search engines. Frankly, I don't get it.

What are your thoughts?

[Robert Charlton]

...The M.arketing W.orld....

It might help rankings on searches for m.arketing w.orld. Sounds like one of those trendy things that people who don't know what they're doing like to try... perhaps a stylistic reference to del.icio.us without the branding or the wit.