I think this is an interesting topic - for me it really highlights the problems inherent to making algorithms profitable. Often pushing them in one direction or another has really pronounced effects on their unbiased nature. I personally think PageRank is still the best algo around and there are not too many good copies. The other thing to consider is that allowing for selection of 'common searches' reduces server load and is computationally less expensive than processing the same search over and over. Also, the way people ask questions may have changed. I mean I know many people that use the 'omnibar' to go to a webpage they know the address of. Like searching google for 'Facebook' just so you don't have to type '.com'.

I remember the days of AskJeeves when your query literally had to be a question - that was very tedious. I am not anxious to go back to that if thats what a decentralized internet looks like.

But I do think we are on a precipice where the size of the company plays a huge role in getting noticed. If you want to stop this don't click on the 'ad' links in the search results. Scroll down until you see the page you want to go to.

@fxtentacle It occurred to me that Microsoft may have blocked the Google Crawler so that people have to switch to Bing. I am really not a fan of how much Microsoft is trying to force people into their ecosystem and are rapidly closing the doors. Took me two hours to figure out how to remove Windows Defender from a VM.