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I've been noticing this too. Seems like a lot of the results are old too. When I'm searching for things where I need "fresher" results I always have to add "2013" to the search to get posts and articles that are actually current. When searching frequently for web development and WordPress related information, it's important that it's not from several years ago because it's no longer relevant. The code has changed, the plugins have changed, etc. I'm not interested in some article or blog post from 2006 that covers WordPress 2.7.

And just a general decline in good results is very noticeable to me. I'm sure they do their best to make that algorithm as good as possible, but it seems to me like they're missing something. Personally I think they should give more weight to the owner of the site by checking WHOIS and have almost like a quality score for domain owners. If you have a good track record for building quality sites you would get more weight that way.

The new up and coming sites really have to work to get up there in rank, we all know that, but it's not a good thing. Somebody could release an amazing site tomorrow and we won't see it in the search results for how long? A year, two years? Obviously depends on a lot of factors. I think there's beginning to be a giant opportunity for someone to build a rival to Google and Bing etc. by thinking outside the box on the whole concept of "search" in general.

Are those domains in the Google index?

Have you tried "site:example.com" for the sites you're mentioning?

I haven't had to do this myself but I've heard that that's what you try.

If those sites aren't indexed then they probably are no good.

In the Yoast SEO Plugin there is a setting under Permalinks, that says this.

Redirect attachment URL's to parent post URL?

"Attachments to posts are stored in the database as posts, this means they're accessible under their own URL's if you do not redirect them, enabling this will redirect them to the post they were attached to."

So it whether you're using images in WP as normal attachments or in a lightbox, I would still check this box and have them redirected. I don't know all the details around this but this is what I do.

Tried to attach an image to show you, but not sure if it worked.

seo-wp-images.png

I've been noticing this too. Seems like a lot of the results are old too. When I'm searching for things where I need "fresher" results I always have to add "2013" to the search to get posts and articles that are actually current. When searching frequently for web development and WordPress related information, it's important that it's not from several years ago because it's no longer relevant. The code has changed, the plugins have changed, etc. I'm not interested in some article or blog post from 2006 that covers WordPress 2.7.

And just a general decline in good results is very noticeable to me. I'm sure they do their best to make that algorithm as good as possible, but it seems to me like they're missing something. Personally I think they should give more weight to the owner of the site by checking WHOIS and have almost like a quality score for domain owners. If you have a good track record for building quality sites you would get more weight that way.

The new up and coming sites really have to work to get up there in rank, we all know that, but it's not a good thing. Somebody could release an amazing site tomorrow and we won't see it in the search results for how long? A year, two years? Obviously depends on a lot of factors. I think there's beginning to be a giant opportunity for someone to build a rival to Google and Bing etc. by thinking outside the box on the whole concept of "search" in general.