Yes and no. I obviously don't know that many details about Google's ranking algorithms, but content age and incoming links play a big role. This plays against content freshness and rate at which new incoming links are added.
I suspect Google uses more or less the same algorithm for general content and for tech documentation. The difference is, general content - news, discussions, fiction, etc. - rarely loses relevancy, it can only be supplanted by newer, more relevant content over time.
This happens for documentation, but it takes time - and at any given time you end up with a hodgepodge of content for various versions.
There's also no foolproof way to search for content for a specific version - this would go a long way towards fixing the problem. The closest solution is restricting the search results by date, I often have to do that.
I suspect Google uses more or less the same algorithm for general content and for tech documentation. The difference is, general content - news, discussions, fiction, etc. - rarely loses relevancy, it can only be supplanted by newer, more relevant content over time.
This happens for documentation, but it takes time - and at any given time you end up with a hodgepodge of content for various versions.
There's also no foolproof way to search for content for a specific version - this would go a long way towards fixing the problem. The closest solution is restricting the search results by date, I often have to do that.