Google Search is routinely gamed by private blog networks
As a legit biz trying to win legit links, this is such a hassle to deal with.<p>Perhaps even worse is the rise of "barely legal" blogs... (though these may be the same thing as PBN I suppose), but, by these, I mean, sure, they're original content, original "reviews," and "legitimate" blogs.<p>But the articles are pumped out en masse, often written in sub-par English, with nothing more than re-wording of a reviewed site's "about us" page. (Perhaps they're even training Markov models on reviewed sites' content?) But they increasingly dominate searches, particularly in the B2B and B2C tech space.<p>Do these serve customers' search intent? They're simple gateway pages: the content is often not really "readable." But since Google favors "reviews" and pages that link to many other top 10 SERPs, they dominate, vs legit product pages.<p>Not far on the list of deplorables is the rise of the "tech stack" lists. Just endless lists of "alternatives to X," and "rankings of XYZ products" (with next to no legit reviews), or "here's the stack this company uses." All designed to get widespread long tail links.