I don’t know if there has been a decline but since working on SEO for Tesults (https://www.tesults.com) which is in the developer/B2B SaaS space I have realized that tool comparison type articles rank highly and they are either content marketing by a vendor or they are pay for link sites. The first I would expect to rank (although that’s not necessarily great) but the second I would not. We have not paid. Some of these sites have such poor quality content and are filled with ads but surprisingly they continue to rank.

Sometimes the most honest thing on page 1 are the links labeled “Ad”. Almost everything is also often an ad.