Search engine obfuscation

Maybe it's some of the people who 'write' for the web.  Maybe it's short deadlines or bad briefs.  Maybe it's just plain old lack of thinking (the bane of 'creatives' everywhere).  Whatever it is, I'm starting to hate - with a vengeance - writing that's been search engine 'optimised'.  You'd like an example?  Here you go...

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I really wish I'd made that up to make a point.  But it is real - I copied it three minutes ago from a live webpage for a design agency.

Now, is it just me or is that a little clunky?  Or clunky is it?  A little?  For people who like clunky, those clunky people?  Clunky people (underlined - issalink!!) like this sort of thing, especially if they enjoy a little bit of clunkiness.

Even forgiving the cliches packed like First Great Western commuters, that's appalling writing BEFORE it was 'optimised'.  Now it's been optimised it's a mess of repetition, garbage and drool.

Write like this in print and - if you're lucky - your Creative Director will sack you.  You really deserve to be eviscerated with a spoon, but sadly, namby-pamby employement law forbids it. So why write like it on the web?  More repetition than a Janet and John book but rather less likely to sell.

It's perfectly feasible to write copy for the web that's as compelling as good print copy.  It's just bloody rare at the moment.  At the moment it's not very common.  Rare in fact, as a somewhat undercooked rare thing with a rare helping of rarebit - or something like rarebit in a village called Rare-on-Sea...

[the author is spending some time with a bottle of something French and red to recover]