SEOmoz | Fuzzy Set Theory & Semantic Connectivity
Semantic connectivity is used by the search engines to build their own ‘Thesaurus’ and ‘Dictionary’ to help them to determine how certain terms & topics are related. By simply scanning their massive databases of content on the web, they can use Fuzzy Set Theory and certain equations (described here) to connect terms and start to understand web pages/sites more like a human does.
This is a way of enforcing that the top sites have relevant content, and operates by a process that remains fairly occult to the casual search engine user.