There have been many interesting threads recently about the decline of Google's search quality here on HN. There's zero doubt search results are getting worse, and that ads and spam are the cause. But Google's financial performance has been going from record to record. So there is a huge disconnect building in the market.

Each thread has had some common themes, but what's surprising is how different the problems discussed are. Here are a few of the best recent discussions:

Google no longer producing high quality search results in significant categories (twitter.com/mwseibel):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29772136

Search engines and SEO spam (twitter.com/paulg):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29782186

Ask HN: Let's build an HN uBlacklist to improve our Google search results?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29794372

DuckDuckGo Traffic - with spam discussion

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29852783

Is Google Search Deteriorating?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29886423

Ask HN: What's Up with Google?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30031672

Tell HN: Google doesn't work anymore for exact matches

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30130535

For some searches the whole screen on Google is now ads https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30213110

Disclaimer: I'm working on a search startup, so I have a clear bias, but one of the main reasons I am working on a search startup is because Google's results are clearly getting worse.