Yes, I feel like Google search results have very gradually become more irrelevant and spammy over the past decade or so. There are 2 issues, I think. Firstly,

Yes, I feel like Google search results have very gradually become more irrelevant and spammy over the past decade or so. There are 2 issues, I think. Firstly, the SE-optimised spam, which has become very good as masquerading as genuine content. Secondly, Google has dumbed search syntax down a bit, and often seems to outright ignore double quoted phrases, presumably thinking it knows better than I what I want. As a dev, I do accept I may be an outlier though - with the incredible wealth of search history and location data that Google holds, it seems likely things have actually improved for typical users.