As a writer, there are three things about the term 'search engine optimization' that I find difficult to accept. We'll start there, and then go on to why I also find the concept of 'search engine optimization' to be linguistically troubling.

First, readability in English is reduced by a heavy concentration of nouns, and the term 'search engine optimization' is three nouns in a row. We'll call it a three-word noun cluster. In science and technology, that isn't too bad compared to many terms,...