Is it keyword spam?

i've noticed a few of our competitors are ranking very well for certain keyphrases even though their page, from my knowledge, seems like it could be violating google keyword spam policy. in order for me to better explain what i'm trying to say, i'll give an example.

let's say i'm selling a widget that has several model numbers which begin with the same keyphrase. now let's say that i created an ordered list with all of those model numbers, and i included the keyphrase before each one. here is how it would look:

bluewidget/(model#1)
bluewidget/(model#2)
bluewidget/(model#3)
etc...

let's say that list goes on for another ten to twenty entries. my question is: would that be considered keyword spam since bluewidget is repeated every time?

i've personally been creating our product pages without the "bluewidget" keyphrase for fear that google will penalize us. but, since i keep seeing our competition ranked even though they have plenty of their pages made in a similar fashion, i'm beginning to think that i'm trying to avoid something that isn't necessarily "bad practice".

What makes you believe they have better ranks because of the "repetitive list of links"?

If your evidence is "because you don't have them" and "you don't rank as well"... that isn't really evidence that "repetitive list of links" work to make better ranks.

If all other things tend to be "the same" they have more and/or better links to their domains than you have to yours... that's where you will make advances in the shortest amount of time.

right, but my question is whether a "repetitive list of links" would harm my results, not make them better.

as a sidenote, from what little i've learned, i definitely do agree with you that my time would be much better spent trying to build inbound links for those pages.

Harm... "NO!"

...it just may not look all that great.

ok, cool. you're right...it really doesn't look good at all.

thanks!