Non-relevent links - who is to say?

[c1bernaught]

I just read a couple of posts that dealt with links, anchor text and this "non-relevent" link thing...

What is a "non-relevent" link? I mean only the end user of the site can determine that... right?

If I have a site that is focused on rain forest conservation and have links to a baseball site, a skydiving site, a rollerskating site and a knitting site... what's to say these other non-rain forest links aren't relevent to users...? Especially when CT's are being recorded every day from these links....

Is this an offense to Google?

I don't understand....

[Yidaki]

Afaik, Google is not yet ready for themes [google.com] - therefor "unrelevant" links are treated like "related" links, imho. However, as always you can over do it ... and i'd go for related links.

[birdstuff]

If you use your link anchor text wisely, there's no such thing as a non-relevent link. Any traffic brought in by such a link is targeted by definition.