I think its changing. To me quality signals feel more complex going beyond GQRG, algorithmic aligment is tricky. Even Google still optimising the process )). But they do a lot to help along the way. Some really amazing programs, documentation, training to help you stay informed and adapt to change.

And quality... that's relative. So many factors. From user preferences, to their state at the time of search (eg in a hurry or not). Providing content in different formats may be the key to quality. Because at the end of the day we all want a happy customer and question is how is that evaluated?

while we wait... I think they target paid links. There are rules to monetization. Difficult to ask for ranking by quality if ranking can be skewed by buying backlinks. For publishers content is often time sensitive so trust is likely a factor. There is a responsibility there and I respect that.

It’s much appreciated

You are right. I think what changed is that the tech became publicly available. More data, more use cases, more experts…

Gets even more interesting if you place LLMs and GenAI