It’s a long story. The Search Engine Guild sponsored a Search Engine Optimization Challenge to see who could achieve top ranking on Google for the peculiar phrase “Nigritude Ultramarine.” Popular blogger (and director of business development at blog software company Six Apart) Anil Dash decided to enter the contest, making a blatant appeal to his thousands of daily readers to link to his entry, hyperlinking on the term “nigritude ultramarine.” It worked: he won. See for yourself: search ‘nigritude ultramarine’ on Google.

Another good example of the power of blogs.

UPDATE:
Tig Tillinghast of MarketingVox had a better write-up than mine, so I figured I’d just rip it off to clarify more of the story (I tipped him off to the story, anyway, so I feel like I’m within my rights):

A contest held to see who could garner the best search engine rankings for a made up phrase (“nigritude ultramarine”) was taken by well-known blogger Anil Dash. His strategy seems to have consisted of appealing to his many readers to link to his page “in order to prove that real content trumps all the shady optimization tricks that someone can figure out, and because I figure I deserve an iPod at least as much as the Star Wars Kid.”
The contestant with the highest ranking site over a three-day period wins the “Stayer” prize, considered the more prestigious of the two prizes given out. The initial award went to Brandon Suit, an online community administrator.