I don't have proof but I'm sure the amount of votes on eg. reddit (or perhaps how long it was on the front page) has an effect on search results; see the Comcast swastika[0] and Trump showing up when searching 'Idiot'[1].
I don't think it actually has anything to do with upvotes, but is just an indirect effect since highly upvoted pages are generally more trafficked, and it's the high traffic that really matters.
I don't have proof but I'm sure the amount of votes on eg. reddit (or perhaps how long it was on the front page) has an effect on search results; see the Comcast swastika[0] and Trump showing up when searching 'Idiot'[1].
0: https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/403brr/10_months_lat...
1: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/397920-activists-manip...