In an e-mail to Matt Cutts, I wrote:

It’s hard for me to image what sort of algorithm would be able to distinguish the highly entertaining, very intelligent, but often utterly filthy Pretty Dumb Things (apparently still in the Google penalty box) from run-of-the-mill sites that use similar language in similar quantities, and even in similar, but tremendously less artful ways.

Right now Peggy and I are re-jiggering page titles and writing meta-tags. In other words, we’re writing for robots, and it’s the most hateful writing assignment I’ve ever had.

If what I’ve learned from Matt and Danny and others is correct, robots are decidedly unimpresses by nearly every aspect of language I adore. Robots don’t care about alliteration, simile or metaphor. Robots don’t subvocalize when they read.

Robots don’t cringe at puns. Robots can’t appreciate a well turned phrase. Robots might write poetry, but they don’t read it. They don’t appreciate music, and they don’t appreciate the musicality of words lined up just so.

I am writing for robots, and I hate it.

Thank God I don’t have to make movies for them.

Update 12.31.06, 9:15

As Matt Cutts notes in the comments, the good news is that searching ‘prettydumbthings.typepad.com’ now returns Pretty Dumb Things, the blog associated with that domain in the top position.

The bad news is that the Google is dumber than ever about Comstock Films. On the search ‘couples porn’ the googlebot is currently ranking zoophilia sites pages high than Comstock Films. What kind of sex are they having over there at Google that a search return like this makes sense? It sure doesn’t look family friendly to me.

——

I know, I know, it’s just a bug. Whatever. As of 9:30AM December 30th, 2006 it’s still not fixed.

(Call me crazy, but I think if you search ‘prettydumbthings.typepad.com’ then prettydumbthings.typepad.com should be the first return.)