Modern day seo spam is attributed to Google dumping page rank in American serps starting back in 2018. Brands were propped up by signals others can't emulate and the smart seos realized it was a fools errand to work anywhere except in house at said brands so they could continue to easily spam and not get noticed, collect easy pay checks and sit on hacker news all day.
This take is so tiring to read on HN. GOOG won the FUD WAR with Russias misinfo playbook.
Ohh yea. E-a-e-t.
GOOG doesn't track clicks either..........