There has been some discussion that google might penalize or reduce the value for links from off-topic sites. I have to wonder how effective such a strategy this would ultimately be. Think about the scope of very important stories and such. You will have sites covering an extremely wide spectrum linking back to specific sites for specific information. There is no way any algo could possibly determine such a wide and disparate spectrum of sites are related. Such a filter/penalty/reduction by Google would only serve to reduce the timeliness and usefulness of the Search Engine Results. Much the same way many of their other filters seem to sacrifice timeliness and relevance in order to comabt manipulation and spam. Why should a link from a computer hardware site about a horrible natural disaster be counted les than one from a weather site? In reality and all seriousness, if nobody was gaming the system wouldn't the off-topic link be worth MORE in terms of value? Wouldn't it be a vote for a true authority that has a reach outside just its central keyword focus? Of course we don't live in a perfect world and such things are too easily manipulated... but that doesn't justify taking it to opposite extreme and penalizing links that likely are deserving of more weight. Personally I don't envy Google's position at all. They are in a no-win situation. The problem is they do have a chance for a tie, and they seem destined to just sacrifice that and go for the loss. Regardless, if and when they start penalizing/reducing value of off-topic links, they will have made their search results that much less relevant and wortwhile for people who actually search. I really hope they can come up with a way to eliminate sites that game the system and not just the techniques they use. If they can't, then they will never be able to provide truely on-point results.
If the link was from a page talking about that natural disaster, it wouldn't be off-topic and there would be no reason to devalue it.... anymore than a link TO a page about a natural disaster on a computer hardware site from a weather site would be off-topic. The relevance of links would be page to page, not site to site. Why? If non-relevant links are devalued, you'd get fewer crap sites boosted in SE rankings as a result of paid links (or at least paid non-relevant links and if the links were relevant and conversely your site was relevant to the linking page you'd have less reason to buy them). Wouldn't that be a bonus for John Q. Searcher?