[krustyburger]

Not the original commenter, but before Google fully pivoted to their present focus on monetizing search, the results were often strikingly useful, even for obscure searches. DuckDuckGo can’t (yet) replicate this now-lost magic.

[monadic2]

In my memory the quality of google searches peaked around 2009 or so I'm not sure I'd refer to it as a "present" effect....