A New York Times article equates SEO with SPAM:
To those in the trade, outsmarting the algorithm is called “search engine optimization.” For the rest of us, it produces Web pages littered with spam.
This is a funny statement coming from the NYT because the New York Times has been heavily optimized for search engines, even to the point of using black hat cloaking techniques.
Here is the listing for that article in Google’s SERPs:
Clicking on that link results in bombardment by an offensive full-page Flash advertisement that I could only get around by clicking on the inconspicuous “skip this ad” link in the top right corner of the page. The first time I visited that page, I was forced to login before viewing it.
I find it funny that the New York Times would run an article that says that SEO “…produces Web pages littered with spam” when the NYT itself is using annoying and spammy SEO methods that are normally forbidden by Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
