java-seo

I'm a bit worried about the semplicistic concept of "relevant" or "related" content used by MC when he talks about linking and reciprocal linking.

I explain what I mean with an example: we are a hotel reservation website and we deal with hotels in various
destinations of the world.

Our "related resources" are the ones that would be _USEFUL_ for a traveller.

As the traveller will book the hotel with us, the rest of the resources are "complementary" resources and not
comtetitive resources.

Example of what we link and what our travellers want us to link (as these are useful things to know if you have already booked or about to book an hotel):

- Car rentals
- Airport transfer services
- Bicycle Rentals
- Art Galleries
- Cinemas
- Museums
- Theaters
- Bars
- Food Festivals
- Restaurants
- Casinos (Yes, if you book an hotel in Las Vegas, you want to know the best casinos if you don't have one inside your hotel)
- Clubs and Discos
- Festivals & events
- Nightclubs

I also have another 195 categories of resources that we regularly link in order to build a good service for our
hotel-bookers.

As you see, these are all hotel and travel related resources, that makes our websites very visited and one-way-linked just because these are useful info for a traveller than wants to book an hotel and know more about the area.

NOW: I'm worried about what MC says in his blog and about the use and definition that all the SEO world has done about "relevant/related" content.

It should be natural that a website will link COMPLEMENTARY resources, not COMPETITORS. Therefore, the keywords to be inspected on our outgoing links are 100% different from what we sell.

Therefore, I'm deeply worried about the concept of "related" that Google will or is applying in evaluating what type of links you have on your pages.

MC says:

"another real estate site......I checked out the site. Aha, Poor quality links...mortgages sites...."

Now: is MC aware that mortgages sites are natural and relevant and pertinent to be linked if you are a real estate agent, as you might want to give related services to your visitors telling them how to find the money to buy his services?

Or does MC search for the related content in terms of a semplicistic "real estate words are good, anythign else is bad"? I mean: is Google even thinking about the fact that a real estate site cannot link a competitor but will be more likely to link complementary services?

In short: does Google and MC want us (a hotel reservation service) link Hotels.com as it will be relevant (and a complete nonsense as they are our competitors) or is googe "mapping" the related (complementary) services for every industry?

I doubt that Google will have a map of every complementary service for any given industry: therefore, I'm afraid that "related" for MC means "same topic, same industry... competitors, essentially".

Will MC want Expedia to link Orbits, in order to evaluate Expedia's lik as relevant?

Or will MC and Google better evaluating (or not "worse evaluating" at least) Hotels.com linking Avis or Budget?