Shocking, but then again not so shocking - Gaming Google

Closed Loop Marketing Blog: Gaming Google - It Really Is That Easy…

This is a very good article from the blog at Closed Loop Marketing. Basically, they unearthed a very (obviously) blatant link-buying scheme, which basically amounts to cloaking (showing Googlebot something different than what the user sees) in order to place links on fairly prominent sites around the internet, thereby juicing up Google rankings for crappy pages like InkAndStuff.co.uk (no link there - they don't deserve any more than they have).

I'm surprised that the research was so obviously incriminating - there are no implications, just obvious facts. MyWebStats.org is using a link selling scheme to fund itself, making its users unwittingly involved in skewing of SE results around the world!