Search engine optimisation has become yet another short term, knee jerk, symptomatic fix for me-too businesses that have no unique proposition for customers. And it lands them into trouble also.
BMW Germany has just had it's site blacklisted by Google.
"What BMW stands accused of doing is setting up so-called doorway pages that trick search bots like Goolge's into boosting the [ranking of the site] ... This trick is called search engine optimisation (SEO)..."
Read the rest of the Sydney Morning Herald article by Stephen Hutcheon Google 'death penalty' for BMW site.
If your business is worth anything, spend the time to discover and champion its unique value offerings, and give these tricks a miss.