I have to wonder if the degrading of search results came solely from SEO dark patterns that do more harm than good, or if Google actively believed that small sites were becoming less relevant as social took off. Objectively, looking at PageRank might convince them that Facebook and Twitter were where people were spending time, but that particular firehose is so big it can - and eventually did - dilute nearly all the other relevant results.

Pipe dream: If someone wishes hard enough, maybe we can convince the Apollo guys to leave Yahoo alone so it can return to its roots as (surprise!) a directory.