I have a website about learning to use the web which has a page about using HTML to program marquees. I mostly get Adsense ads for LED signs. I also learned from that page that in some parts of the world a ‘marquee’ is a tent.

I do however, see these mismatches as an opportunity. The one phrase wonder was easily turned into an article which currently sits at #1 for that phrase and receives a nice bit of traffic (it is the most visited page of the site). A spelling error on my part led to even more traffic and with a little research I learned that most non-native English speakers spell it that way. So, of course I added a paragraph that exclusively used that spelling and drove even more traffic to the page.

While my marquee page drives me batty, I see the other non-relevant results as an opportunity. If Google ranks my non-relevant page well for a single phrase on a page – there’s weakness among the sites that should be ranking for that phrase. That weakness can easily be exploited by crafting a page directed to that phrase. So, I do agree that search engines will never be able to match humans for true comprehension of word meanings; but, I don’t mind it a bit when they basically hand me a #1 ranking on a silver platter.

so in other words, get links for people. it all ALWAYS boils down to doing whatever you do, for people. am i right in this?

But that said the reason to get links on relevant pages to your own content is not for search engines (who don’t care as long as the anchor text works) is to attract relevant visitors.

Get links on relevant sites not for search engines who don’t care, but for visitors who do care.