Researchers have confirmed what many internet users have suspected for some time – search engine results are indeed deteriorating. A group of German researchers conducted a year-long review of 7,392 product review queries on Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo, and their findings suggest a decline in the quality of search engine results.
The study revealed that higher-ranked pages tend to be more optimized and heavily monetized with affiliate marketing, often exhibiting lower text quality. The prevalence of affiliate marketing in search engine results has contributed to the decline in the quality of search engine results pages (SERPs).
The researchers from Leipzig and Bauhaus universities, along with the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence, noted that search engines are struggling with highly optimized (affiliate) content. They also observed a negative correlation between affiliate marketing use and content complexity, indicating that pages loaded with affiliate links and SEO strategies tend to offer poorer content.
Furthermore, the study found that all three search engines are susceptible to manipulation by large-scale affiliate link spam campaigns. Despite efforts to combat such manipulation through algorithm updates, the researchers noted that the impact is often temporary, with the problem persisting.
The study’s findings align with the growing sentiment among internet users that search engine results are inundated with low-quality content from SEO farms and affiliate link sites. This decline in search engine result quality is expected to worsen with the rise of generative AI, posing a significant challenge for internet users seeking reliable and informative search results.
