I look at hundreds of web sites every week and I’m not surprised by much. Usually it’s a creative domain name or graphic that catches my attention.

A couple years ago, one spa web site included an animated graphic with a cat giving another happy cat a massage. It was freakishly odd, especially the yellow towel on one of the cat’s heads.

What I saw today wasn’t as peculiar as much as it was senseless.

It was keyword spam city on a splash page for SEO. I hate splash pages, but this one took it to a new level. I’ll spare the web site by showing you only part of the page (a very small part of this mess). After a few seconds, the page redirects to the “real” home page for what appears to be a very established assisted living center.

Why would a web marketer risk having the site delisted just to throw in a bunch of redundant keywords?

OK, so maybe they rank well – for now – because search engines don’t automatically size up these tactics and kick them out.

But this is the first impression? Really?

The facility shows a visitor absolutely nothing except a bunch of words you don’t want to read and “Skip Intro” text that shouts: “Ignore This Web Site Because We Just Annoyed You.”

Maybe competitors have already gone to the Webmaster Tools Google Spam Report.

I’m left wondering why a company president or marketer would let this splash “tactic” persist for SEO. I guess they figure that it’s only a few seconds and impatient Internet searchers will miraculously become patient and look forward to what lies behind this first page.

I still insist that no web site can be perfect – there will always be flaws. But some decisions need to be challenged and fixed.

How often do you encounter keyword spam?