"If you get a link from Moz.com, then we’d say that the topics are things like SEO, digital marketing, content marketing, etc."

"Page relevance"

"Additionally, we can add other elements to link relevance such as anchor text. What if you get super relevant anchor text but the page where the link is placed is about a completely different topic that isn’t relevant?"

"The attributes of content that sits on your website are far more under your control, so if you create something that is designed to get links and starts to go off topic a little, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect Google to take a harsher view on this in holding you accountable."

"Having talked about each one, my take is that link relevance matters a lot less than content relevance to Google and therefore, to your ability to rank in organic search."

"The point being, it seems a stretch to think that Google would have a problem with links like these and therefore, shouldn’t be anything to worry about."

"I do believe that Google cares a lot about how much they can trust a certain website and the links from that website."

"The truth is that in situations like this, it’s pretty obvious that the content has been created for the purposes of generating links. This in itself isn’t necessarily a problem, but if you do it over and over again, whilst the content clearly serves no other purpose, it’s not exactly a signal that your website is truly link worthy."

"If I were Google, I’d look for evidence that content is being created just for links. So I may look at a few signals such as the following."

"Ratio of links to off-topic content vs. the rest of the website"

"The content being a little bit orphaned in terms of internal links"

"We should accept that content relevance is important and something that Google can (rightly) hold us accountable for."

"More specifically, start with the journey that they take when finding your product or service."

"So, we should instead look at the customer journey. There are various ways to model this funnel but here is one that we use all the time at Aira and an example for a B2B company:"

"If you want to produce relevant content ideas for your link building campaigns, you need to start by understanding and mapping out the customer journey."

"Use keyword research to inform idea generation"

"Reduce focus on link volumes"

"Instead, the focus needs to be on link prospects that are closely aligned with your own products, services and customers."

"When you do think about relevance, focus more of your attention on content relevance and ensure that content that you produce is unquestionably relevant to your customers and your brand."