If you have been researching Google serps you have probably noticed a growing trend of spammers exploiting weaknesses in how Google shows answers, knowledge graphs, "news" articles and other universal serps add-ons. There are many special interest groups that are trying to push their own agenda and point of view even when it does not match reality. These groups are paying good money to push their own version of reality and/or teaching their members how to spam Google. It is turning into an embarrassing situation that is damaging Google's reputation.
It seems this is a natural evolution that started with big lobby groups that hired reputation firms to fix embarrassing serps like the high fructose corn syrup damage control situation. Then political groups & religious groups realized they could use the same exploits to push their own agendas.
Google has a tough problem. It isn't easy to crackdown on these exploits without widespread collateral damage. Google is trying to give their users a good experience but the army of spammers and manipulators keeps on growing. Should be interesting to see how Google protects their reputation of reliable answers and how much collateral damage to innocent webmasters results.
