What is the group of words/phrases at the bottom of some web pages?

[discovermypath]

Hello, My name is David and I am new. This is my first post in fact.

Anyways, I have noticed on certain web pages, there is this big list of grouped words/phrases at the bottom on the page. They almost look like keywords. Does anyone know what they are all about?

I have sort of a theory, I may be off base since I really have no clue what they are all about. I have heard that search engine's don't like it when people use keywords in there meta tag's that are not within the content of there pages. I'm thinking that they use this group of words/phrases so they can use certain keywords in there meta tag's that might have a higher CPC percentage, or lower competition maybe.

I may be way off base like I said before but thats all I can come up with. If anyone knows what this is please respond and let me know.

Thank you in advance to anyone who can help

[Jason]

They do it to exploit a vulnerability in the Google Algorithm. Everyone talks about how effective Google is at spotting exploitative sites but to be honest... most of the competitive phrases have a number black hat optimised websites in the top 10. These links give them a big boost.