Speaking of search links, I find it utterly annoying that, when looking for a component with its reference, in general the first good ten links (sometimes you even have to go to the next page) are nothing like the actual product web page, but either direct links to files, or links to distributors, or random blogs.
That "probably" reflects what most people are looking for though, so I may be the only one annoyed here.
It reflects paid-for search rankings, possibly?
That's possibly part of the reason for some cases, although I'd find it weird if say some blogs would pay more for SEO than semiconductor vendors themselves (and I'm not talking about large web sites like stackexchange).
But just the fact that direct links to datasheets often come well before the product pages annoys me tremendously.
If I'm looking for a datasheet, I prefer downloading it from the vendors website rather than directly from a search engine, thanks.
I guess probably most people prefer the opposite though, as it's a bit faster (but you never know if that's the latest version in this case, and often it is not). Even worse when the direct link to a datasheet is not even hosted on the vendor's website but on a random one that's ranked way higher in the results.
I think direct links from websites in search results should not even be allowed, but I'm sure many would disagree, so.
Search engines have gotten worse and worse over the years...
Well, it's pretty much down to entropy, something like that.
Search engines are gigantic pools of opportunity, it's natural that everyone will try to get their share. But over time, it tends to become a big mess.
I don't think there's any way around it, apart from creating more specialized search engines to avoid swimming all in the same polluted pool.