I have a friend who works for a large SEO company and they have such a hard time keeping up with arbitrary changes to the Google algorithm. It's just so opaque, and even a company that's been doing really well can have their traffic slashed 10-fold for no apparent reason.
I found Hive through a blog post about eco-friendly NFTgalleries. Then I saw a detailed github post that mentioned NFT Showroom too and my interest was peaked. From there I was drawn into thewider Hive eco-system. So yes, ultimately, I think it's the quality of dapps will help get word out, and the fact that they're all "cross-pollinated" is a big draw.
dapps would need to do more to get outside people and a good app can get more people. i would personally want more connections between apps.
and maybe the number of posts, comments and activity will help in rankings.