I got what you were saying.. just some light hearted teasing 
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I first really started to learn SEO basics when I started toying with google adsense. For instance, if you plop adsence into a fairly new VBulletin forum, your ads are mostly going to be for forums, CMS systems etc ..
Add more words.. get more ads.. but a quick way to get real targeted ads real fast was markup the content using basic SEO markups, bold keywords, add htags.. etc.
It’s what the spiders understand. Maybe their algo is bs, but can we really afford to ignore it?
I mean the linking that’s good for user and G alike imo, it’s what the internet was intended to be, a bunch of interlinked (webbed if you will) information.
The tagging does often take some thought. For instance the words ‘click here’ shouldn’t be in bold. You could make them red or arial blac to draw attention, but you will have to be SEO Aware to get that. But the headline tags don’t just say HEY GOOGLE THIS IS WHAT THIS PAGE IS REALLY ABOUT!!!! They also tell the user what the page is about, they break up long boring pages..
So I don’t think it’s BS, in fact, I find it super fascinating and could go on all day… but I also don’t think it’s an exact science, and often times, it aint perfect man.