I just found a great article on search engine optimization (SEO): 8 Myths of Search Engine Optimization
He basically says what we’ve been saying for years. SEO is all about words. Everyone seems to want to turn search engine optimization into some mystical voo doo, but basically if you write a lot of good articles, and create sites with clean HTML code, in the end people will find your site when they do a search. Google never penalizes sites with good writing, clean code, and links coming in from other respectable sites. It’s boring, old fashioned, and true.
However, sleezeball tactics like bogus meta tags, doorway pages, and link farms always end up being a bad idea in the long run. It almost invariably is some “get-rich-quick” marketer type who is pushing this type of drek.
All of our large content sites like Computor Companion, Logical Tips, Pet Tails, Sandpoint Insider, and Many Veggie Recipes continue to get visitors year in and year out because quality content never goes out of style. The sheer number of visitors who find our sites using search engines is ample proof that this “old fashioned” approach to SEO works quite well.