[josefresco]

The leak essentially confirmed what SEO experts already suspected (knew) but Google denied. SEOs have spent 2+ decades observing Google search behavior and honestly I wasn't even a little bit surprised their observations were proven correct. At this point, the "garbage" on Google isn't SEO optimized organic results, it's the ads.

[aaronwall]

For what it is worth, Google has favored macro-parasites over micro-parasites. The bigger companies have access to the ears of market regulators, etc. The average small publisher or affiliate site has almost nobody care if it disappears.

Part of the most recent Google update was penalizing high authority trusted sites for publishing off topic content from third parties. There is a concept called "goog enough" explaining how the likes of Forbes ranked for just about everything. https://www.blindfiveyearold.com/its-goog-enough