http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

I thought this one was fairly well known? Especially the text on the page of the #1 result: Last update: May 4, 2005.

Seems like Google's new algorithm isn't as good as they'd have us believe? Still needs a little work?

It's interesting that their official word says they adjusted their algorithms, but doesn't mention how. I know they don't want to tip their hand, but their page rank entry at least gives a basic overview of how PR works. One algorithm would be to look for keywords that repeat across a lot of complaint emails or comments.

They've not got round to adding it to their "Ignore This URL On This Search Term" table yet.

Honestly, I was more than a little surprised when I learned a page can come up in a search for words that aren't on that page. Stopping that would probably improve the quality of their search, and stop google-bombs.

Or maybe they read the text, and felt like appeasing the French isn't a priority?

I'm with you, ForrestCroce. As much as I'm a big G fan (and personally find I get more relevant results from it than any of the other SEs except possibly Gigablast), I really do wish they'd say "if phrase X isn't on page Y, then backlink Z with anchor text phrase X doesn't amount to bugger all."

In this case, though, doing so wouldn't completely solve the problem. The text is in both the body (in bold) and the title tag itself. So...that's a whole other algorithmic issue (although one that would be fairly easy to solve...just find and eliminate sites containing portions of big G-specific HTML code/URLs/etc., both past and present.

The thing with the wording is that it's yet another thing webmasters have chosen to misinterpret and bastardize. Did Google say they solved the problem completely? No. They said they REDUCED the problem. That means the problem to some extent does still exist and probably will for the foreseeable future. But we all expect it to be eliminated and then we whine when we see an example.

I know of a similar example (but won't share it here for reasons at least one mod would understand) of a designer who got targeted in a similar fashion. The page itself is still in big G in the #2 position...but it's out of 683 results for a phrase no one would ever search for that didn't already know about it, so no big deal.