http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=35291

Another illicit practice is to place "doorway" pages loaded with keywords on the client's site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant for a wide range of keywords. More insidious, however, is that these doorway pages often contain hidden links to the SEO's other clients as well. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO and its other clients, which may include sites with unsavory or illegal content.

I don't understand? Was this written by someone who doesn't understand the Google algorithm? Is it just really bad, unclear writing? Do they mean something entirely different than what they wrote, like this is a thing that could get a person banned ( but not at all affect "link popularity" ? )

I realize there are more important questions in the world, but I'm curious when I see something that seems so wrong, coming from the horse's mouth.

Also, what is "scumware?"

Scumware is basically a nastier word for spyware (think Gator, eZula, etc.)

As far as that writeup goes, it has been in place pretty much verbatim (it may have changed slightly) for the past 5-7 years. Way back in the day, PageRank was lord master of the SEO universe and the link popularity issue would have been much more important than it is now.

You're right, though. This is the type of thing that could get someone banned.

It is in the normal style of Googlese

PageRank and Link Popularity are really different issues, even though they have the same cause (links) they have very different effects.

Link Popularity is useful across all the Internet Search Engines. As, the top echelon at least, use page linkage as a ranking metric to some degree in their ranking algo.