Went to YouTube to find the George HW Bush baseball meme. The search term pops up but the result is nowhere to be seen. Eight videos of bush doing the first pitch and then snl sketches. Went to google, similarly no results. Went to duckduckgo and got it immediately.
Like shits unusable, if someone dislikes a video and has money they absolutely can get it taken off the search systems most people use.
This is far too interesting a thing to hear about for you to not go into more depth. What’re the major changes that are unique to the past 18 months?
Nothing unique, just a continuation of SEO tactics of the last decade. Link buying is universal and google can't stop it, content mills now have high-quality writers and can fool algorithmic attempts. Spammy sites get more ctr and influencer advertising has completely fucked up search volumes and such. Display Advertising is dead, finally, and search ad volumes are decreasing as well. Google is basically floating on shopping ads and attempting to support them in organic results, which has resulted in "wish-itis". YouTube ads are barely paying server costs, and businesses advertising on online channels are seeing low ROI due to market fatigue.
On the Social Front, Facebook is in terminal decline, and influencer advertising is dying at a rapid rate. Major businesses are pulling out of Social and sometimes out of Digital.