> I don't believe for a second that Google's algorithms are unable to identify and remove content marketing blogspam.

Easy for me to believe. They have to use some formula, and as soon as they change it, well, there's a massive industry dedicated to getting around it. If their algorithm is just "filter out what's useless", that's AGI.

The point of content marketing blogspam is to pester the reader with AdWords and the occasional affiliate link.

Old-school useful content is rarely monetized, just someone sharing their passion for something. Occasional affiliate link, with the obligatory apologetic "hey web servers cost money, so I included some affiliate links here!"

The uselessness is just a side effect of Google directing you toward paying customers.

The other answers are probably the actual reason, but it's amusing to me to think that it's because giving you incorrect results drives up engagement on the search because you keep going back… it's also obviously the wedding metric to use in this case, but that has never stopped people before.

The sites are all packed with google ad spam. Why would they not promote them. Google benefits when people click fake download buttons too.

If you need to click more links to find useful content, then google probably does benefit.

The reason for that is that no professional Content company has made content for "can cats eat asparagus" yet. If this ever pops up on SEMRush or SEOMoz people will start making pages for it, and the results that don't get clicked will be driven to the second or third page.

I get the same thing using Google search. Three results with the answer in the snippet.