Quality of search engines: Has there always been so much spam?

Google searches are getting worse and worse, we read more often – including here, at ZEIT ONLINE. There is no lack of anecdotal evidence for this statement, for example when Google currently presents a student’s homework as the top search result when asked whether John F. Kennedy supported the death penalty or the news section is flooded with automatically generated AI articles. But can the perceived loss of quality also be scientifically measured and confirmed? A team from the University of Leipzig and the Bauhaus University in Weimar wanted to find out.

SOURCE