Another part of this is the rise of search, period.

Back in the Ancient Times, when "search" sites were in fact, directories of sites, not unlike the Yellow Pages, you had a categories and listings.

I've been using The Emulator Zone since 1997. Long before Google, and found them under Yahoo's "Games" category. Since they've been around for over 25 years, I trust them. The often do grab the software from repositories and make it easily available. The site does have ads, but I haven't encountered a malicious one. It's all for stuff I actually use (Microsoft Azure, fragrances from House of Creed, and Hertz Car Rental right now), so I have a little leeway with these people, but TEZ has never actively attempted to obfuscate or confuse the reader unlike this site and others like it.