They've done the exact same thing with web pages. Google started penalizing pages and sites with "low content". So now if a page ranks well and could potentia

They've done the exact same thing with web pages. Google started penalizing pages and sites with "low content". So now if a page ranks well and could potentially answer your query, you know it's going to have a ton of fluff. That's why on pages for cooking recipes, for example, you have to scroll through the author's life story before getting to the recipe. And people hate doing that. So to solve the problem they created, Google added to search results the "Knowledge Panels" and "People also ask" sections and such. And it has a nice benefit for Google - probably unintentional: people stay on Google properties rather than clicking away to 3rd-party sites. Some relevant links: "The web starts on page four" - 306 points and 239 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30166108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30166108 "Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019" - 435 points and 289 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23477201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23477201 I want to add a huge caveat to the latter link: The top-voted comment is true - when only considering Wikipedia and similar sites (e.g. ones with similar missions and ones using permissive licenses for their content.) nend's response is also spot-on, in that it's a problem for other kinds of sites.