SEO Gaming by JC Penney

Engadget comments on a NYT article on JC Penney gaming the search process of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on Google Search.  I fail to see how anything wrong was done by the retailer, except that the search system as it exists was manipulated to get the best results for themselves.  If Google's system is weak to such approaches, the fault is their's. Update:  John Battelle in his Searchblog provides more commentary and says this is nothing new or unexpected.