I didn't 'try to pick on' - I pointed out two garbage results in a query that they literally push you to from the home page as examples for potential customers. If those results aren't doing what people claim (not highlighting seo spam) then I'm not really left with any faith that the queries they don't elevate to their home page will be better.

When the 'trusted websites' caught on and embraced the game, Google was apparently helpless to stop it.

A bit farther down the page is a 'best headphones for 2020' article.

And this is the example result set they push on the home page to a potential buyer.

You guys pay for this thing?

It's fairly standard practice that issuers will remove some cards from the affiliate channel (Chase Slate was the prime example of this last I was active in the space.) Once a card is out of the channel, a publisher may need to scrub all mentions of that card off their site completely to stay compliant.

So in my last hands on example - even through the Chase Slate was arguably one of the best balance transfer card options at the time, we literally had to pretend like it didn't exist, or risk all other commissions from other active Chase cards.

There's no way to actually be honest and stay within their terms at the same time - all language is reviewed and picked apart by lawyers, which is why you'll see the same exact 'marketing bullets' across cc review sites. (Amex was the worst - can't say 'grocery store', have to say "US supermarket" type nonsense.)

Hilarious.

Also - cramming a keyword you want into a title tag that doesn't fit the content is shitty SEO. There's a difference between that, and doing it well.