But a lot of them do a really bad job of it like linking to irrelevant sites multiple times even on a single page. This makes it fairly obvious a site has been

But a lot of them do a really bad job of it like linking to irrelevant sites multiple times even on a single page. This makes it fairly obvious a site has been hacked and severe de-ranking soon follows. Those doing it in a clever way are few and far between and, it could be argued, if they are simply linking to relevant sites in a measured manner, who cares? The 'legitimate' links on many commercial sites are paid for one way or another anyway? I agree it goes against the spirit of a supposedly neutral search service though.