People trying to game search engine to rise to the top have always existed. Before Google it was easy, and search engine results were crap. Then Google managed

People trying to game search engine to rise to the top have always existed. Before Google it was easy, and search engine results were crap. Then Google managed to return relevant search results despite all the people trying to game it... And at some point Google stopped trying. The problem isn't SEO experts successfully gaming the organic results, but Google mixing ads in a misleading way and giving up on fighting SEO. So don't blame SEO experts for trying to get their pages to the top, that's their job. Blame Google for stopping doing the one thing that made them popular: return relevant search results despite everyone trying to game it.