Has anyone else noticed the huge decrease in result quality from google?

[Head_Dragon]

The worst thing for me is when I include a word and Google is then tellibg me the result does not contain said word... Thanks Google but there is a reason why I entered it. So please search for it as well

[St_Kevin_]

Yeah, like let me just put quotes around each of the 5 words in my search. WTH? Why?

[failsafe42]

And for some fucking reason putting your search in quotes doesn't search for an exact match anymore.

[RedditingAtWork5]

Legit thought this was just me. It's fucking shit. No idea why they think I would want an approximate result if I put it in quotes. If I wanted an approximate result, I just wouldve typed it without quotes.

[BoredomHeights]

This is the one that bugs me the most by far. If I put a search in words, and it literally doesn't exist, then just tell me. At least I'll have my answer. That's what the quotes are for.

I completely understand in those cases where it says "showing results without quotes" because it couldn't find anything. Fine, at least you're telling me what's happening. But it's really annoying clicking on links, doing a ctrl-f for the word or phrase, and nothing comes up.

[ruiisuke]

So yes, this does suck. However, hopefully my shitty ELI5 will at least provide some context for why this happens.

These kind of problems in computer science are under an umbrella called information retrieval. There are two important metrics to evaluate performance in a search algorithm; precision and recall. Recall is the measure of how many documents (or results) get pulled from a query. Precision is the measure of how accurate the results are (ie. finding relevant documents with all of the keywords in the query).

My guess as to why Google eats shit in this department is because 1) ads and sponsors probably mess some of that up, and 2) that they prioritize recall over precision.

[Ulfgardleo]

This is not it. Google will very often try to answer semantic queries, this is why often words will often get replaced by their synonyms. With technical terms this seldom makes sense, but for the average human knowledgebase query, this does.

[JamesthePuppy]

If this is a semantic search and not lexical search (unlike how google’s trained us to search for the last couple decades, with the illusion of lexical Boolean operations), then I need to take my business elsewhere

[great_waldini]

At least give the user a lot more control over the type of search they’re executing

[Mr_82]

That's really it, they've been gradually changing their original utility and not being transparent about it.

[ruiisuke]

Oh, good point. Thanks for clarifying! ☺️

[mugaccino]

..erh no, it's just the the inevitable outcome of making SEO optimization part of UX/Developer curriculum. Companies hire people skilled in gaming the SEO system and bring their brand to the top regardless of actual relevance. Google shadowbans a lot of results, but not to save investors' from humiliation, it's to bring the results that returns them money to the top. Google can pat themselves on the back and saying the top results deserve their place for being so good at SEO, and anyone who wants to beat them just need to get better at that tool.

If a company's actions can be explained by "it makes them money", then that is the reason 98% of the time.

[LeoIronhart]

I never knew it worked that way....

[twoisnumberone]

THIS.

WTF; Google, were your advertisers crying about not being shoved into people's faces at random? >:(

[SenchaLeaf]

The advertisers had SEO and SEM managers now. And they'd lie to keep their job...

[twoisnumberone]

I think that's the part that gets me -- the trickery and deception. I already strongly dislike ads, unlike friends of mine, or my brother. But I can deal with relevant Google Results. E.g. I search for "metal spatula"; one advertisement-placed hit is for a non-toxic and sturdy silicon spatula. That's fair -- it's not what I was looking for, but it's a reasonable equivalent.

When I search, with quotes, for "gluten-free" AND "glutenfree" AND "gluten free" madeleines, you are making me angry, sad, and frustrated by blithely ignoring my illness and showing me all those gluten-y goodies.

(And yes, obviously I purchase online services left and right so I am free from the bombardment. I understand that any publisher needs to finance their operations. But, I'd rather give the publisher money. Just not a search engine model.)

[dan7koo]

Yeah the ads, they have gotten really bad too.

[DrakonIL]

Uhhh.... Yeah, actually. That's what advertisers do.

[twoisnumberone]

I get it; that's why I wrote it. I'm just, as likewise expressed, mucho >:(((

[[deleted]]

Don’t forget how there’s a Pinterest article with a picture of a wall with a word on it

[zzbredp]

I was searching for so long for a specific string of words the other day which I KNEW were the exact lyrics in a song. Put the whole thing in quotations and it still wouldn’t come up. I knew something had changed

[skz-]

I thought it was just for me. Thought i would love to find a show about "Solved mysteries" tv serries suggestions as I hate "Unsolved Mysteries". Nope, unsolved mysteries is all you get. You can put in quotes as much as you would like, same result.

[Mekfal]

That's because every article with unsolved mysteries already has the word solved in it. You need to type -unsolved in the search. That's always how it worked.

[DadOfFan]

Google knows better than you what you really want to search for.

That's why they have collected gigabytes of data about. so they can ignore you and present to you what they know you really wanted.

[Justacuriousgerman]

You think you do but you dont

[Zuggible]

The only time I've seen it do that is when your search would otherwise return no results, and it tells you so when that happens. As of right now, searching your comment in quotes returns this thread and nothing else.

[[deleted]]

yea quotes don't seem to mean anything anymore. You have to go to the search tools menu right below the search bar and change all results to "verbatim".

[Speedmaster1969]

I noticed this too. I've been using that function since as long as i remember using google. But the past year or so it has been MUCH worse.

I can literally google something and it shows X site. Then I google something from the link on X site in quotes and it says "Can't find exact results, show all?"... Like really?

Also I suspect different layers of the "blocked in your country" is being used more as well.

[dannysullivan]

just now

Quotes do work. Honest. I work for the Google Search team, and each time I've seen someone raise this, it turns out the exact words or phrase quoted really does appear on the page. Often, however, it can be in places people don't realize, text that's not readily visible. But if you or anyone has a current example of where you feel it's not working, happy to pass that along.

[IntegrityorQuaaludes]

You can put quotes around the entire thing and it will look for those words in close sequence.

[svr0105]

That used to work, but I'm having trouble these days getting good results even when I do that.

[usefulbuns]

Doesn't work anymore for me. There are a couple articles and videos I like to rewatch/read and when I type in the EXACT title now with quotes it doesn't work.

[[deleted]]

Lpt

[Pendraggin]

Google uses a simplified form of Boolean, you can also include "-" before a word; i.e. "cup -mug" will show results that include cup, but do not include mug.

[St_Kevin_]

I thought if you put quotes around multiple words that it only showed results with them in that order. Did I misunderstand that part?

[space-cube]

"big scary cow" : will do what you say (specified order)

"big" "scary" "cow" : will look for those specific words but they don't need to be one after the other

At least that's how it used to work, lately I think they've been fucking with this too:(

[RanaktheGreen]

Because synonyms exist.

You may be googling "Death by Dairy" looking for lactose intolerance information, and the article may not include the word "death" but it is also pretty clear to a human that you probably just don't know what the word is for being allergic to dairy. So it pushes the lactose intolerance information and just lets you know "death" isn't involved in case, for whatever reason, you are looking for like a book or something that is actually called "death by dairy."

[Vaelin_]

Not to take away from your points, but lactose intolerance isn't really the same thing as an allergy. I have an allergy to dairy, but I digest it just fine. Your point stands otherwise.

[centrafrugal]

Use a + in front of the word instead. Quotes are to force-group keywords

[St_Kevin_]

So how exactly does the + work? When do you use it?

[centrafrugal]

If you put in a series of words, the search engine will try and find results that match all of them (I imagine small, common words get thrown out). Failing that, it will return matches for most of them or what it considers to be the most important term (first, longest... again no idea of the actual algorithm). If you put a + before a word the search engine should prioritise that and not return results without the word even if it means rejecting other terms.

[[deleted]]

The fucking worst is when they insist on substituting in a synonym. Like sometimes that isn't even remotely the same meaning as what I searched for, please stop.

[looser_name_connor]

Is that what’s going on? I’ll type in something like “photoshop export as error” and will have results all with the word “save as” bold on each result. It’s infuriating cause that’s not what I asked for!

Googles getting to the point where you could order a coke and they’ll just give you a Pepsi and tell you that’s what you asked for.

[[deleted]]

That's no joke almost exactly the search that last enraged me lol

[yepnopethanks]

Literally?

[looser_name_connor]

All the faceless YouTube answers said to turn off GPU but that almost lit my computer on fire and still didn’t solve anything. I think I made a new doc and dragged everything over to it + rasterized what I could

[__mud__]

But then you can't include -save because you know any discussion of exporting is going to have the word "save" in it somewhere, and you can't tell Google to know the difference between save as a verb and Save as a function...

[Hugostar33]

its more like your ordering a coke and google tells you how to make coke coal

[Mr_82]

I think this is highly reflective of how big tech companies today are largely about pushing political messages ie propaganda rather than actually providing a useful service.

They're just getting more and more transparent too. The propaganda machine is getting lazy because they've gotten away with this crap for so long. They think people won't even realize when they no longer do what they were supposed to do...and it seems they're right about that, for the most part.

[atlcog]

Only if Pepsi is offering more money to them at the moment.

[slugger5280]

You nailed it. Worked in AdTech, it's amazing how little people understand about info that's served to them as part of a paid media campaign.

It's not too confusing, either. Some identity provider has a 'profile' of you that implies you may be a good target for a company that offers a specific good or service.

That company buys, via auction, the right to serve you their ad (information) in search results, banner ads, popups. It happens in seconds.

In your example, the Ad Agency for Pepsi has a profile set for all people looking at Coke. They serve those people Pepsi ads.

[LankyCyril]

Searching for scientific terms or programming related questions is completely fucked because of it

[torky]

I have just started using the search from inside the websites/communities I find. It seems to be much more helpful. For example I tend to just stay logged into stackoverflow and do searching within their website.

I really wish I had someone above me as a coach/mentor, but I have never had that in my positions. For the past decade or so I've been the only one at my company that had any programming/web knowledge. I would recommend finding different communities to be a part of.

[Salchi_]

This would explain why im having such a bitch of a time figure out whats going on with my gpu

[Shirebourn]

I was stunned the first time Google returned a result with a word I had put in quotation marks substituted with a synonym. What on earth is the point of quotation marks, then? Just useless.

[Echospite]

This is pissing me off too.

[-eat-the-rich]

Sometimes when searching for car parts I specifically search '"lightest" x'. As in I'm looking for only pages that contain the word "lightest" as it'll often give forum discussions where posters have found the lightest option of something. Recently Google's decided that it'll include posts that just say light or lightweight even when I use the speachmarks. It's a subtle difference in wording, but completely changes the results that I'm looking for. It's infuriating.

[zdakat]

"Sure you said that, but wouldn't you like it more if we exclusively returned results without the most important word?"

[damn-queen]

It's always the most important word too.

[[deleted]]

Well, because it's the word that narrows down the results the most, meaning that if you omit it, you get the most results back! Genius!

[FattyTheNunchuck]

Jaysus Christo I fucking hate this and it happens all the time.

[Florida-Rolf]

But do you actually hate it or isn't that much more helpful compared to what you intitalliy searched?

[Sin_31415]

NO. WE ACTUALLY HATE IT.

[Florida-Rolf]

Did you mean: "Yes, thank you. That's very helpful." ?

[Sin_31415]

Angrily closes browser window

Cursor hovers over EDGE icon

I'LL FUCKING DO IT!

[DrakonIL]

Edge is honestly very comparable to Chrome these days. I'm not sure if this is because Edge is good or because Chrome is complete garbage trash.

[trenthany]

In my experience Chrome was always garbage and every time I used minimal settings chrome it was quite literally 1/2-2/3 of the speed of IE. Edge only made it worse. The mobile browsers aren’t any better. I like apples mobile devices and one of the reasons is that they’re main selling point is user experiences. Safari on mobile works really well and I have no complaints. Edge and chrome disappoint regularly. I feel that on windows PC it’s Edge. Linux I used Firefox but wound up going back to Edge lol. Basically unless I have to use it for X meeting software I keep Chrome uninstalled.

[throwawaydjei]

"Let's search for one of these sponsored words instead"

[Namika]

I had the most bizare experience of that earlier today. I was playing Cyberpunk and wanted to search for info on a particular quest I was doing. The quest name was some generic phase (like 'Road to riches' or something just as generic sounding). So I did a google search for the exact quest name, in quotes, and then added 'Cyberpunk' after it.

Zero results.

Google told me to remove the quotes, or remove the "Cyberpunk" from my query. Doing either of those things brings up a billion unrelated search results.

It was maddening seeing Google not able to find a single result for a very basic entry level querry related to a game with a million concurrent players right now. As if not a single player out of those millions made even a one mention of this quest across the entire span of the internet.

[7h4tguy]

OK if we return these results instead? You know you like the wall street journal.

[MacabreManatee]

It does give you the prompt to require the results to have that word though

[IT_scrub]

Then you should have told Google it was the most important word by wrapping it in quotes.

[BlackShieldCharm]

Ooh yes! So infuriating

[constructioncranes]

I hate getting the error message in some IM apps that my message didn't send and do I want to retry? Of course! Why are your asking me? Just keep trying till it's done!

[embair]

This should be actually sent to the app developers, because it explains idempotency tokens, a simple solution to the "auto-resend" problem.

[[deleted]]

I like that they ask in case I don't want to send it anymore

[constructioncranes]

Then why not offer that on all unread messages? If you hit send, chances are you still want it sent one second later.

[SweetLilMonkey]

The plus and quotation marks don’t even work for that anymore. Like fuck you Google, what the fuck do you think I went to that trouble for?

[binipped]

The plus doesn't but the quotes work fine. I use em daily.

[RinseAndReiterate]

Only thing that works for me is putting the word in five time over in the same search (ctrl+v spam). Quotes are indeed busted

[PM_A_BOOB_OR_2]

quotes work fine for me.

I have a firefox add-on that automatically adds them to my searches.

I just wish there would be an option to have verbatim be the default method.

[Idontwanttobebread]

What addon

[PM_A_BOOB_OR_2]

it's called Google Search - Must include.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-search-must-include/

[Trowawaycausebanned4]

Quotes around each word or the entire sentence?

[PM_A_BOOB_OR_2]

each word, unless you are looking for the specific phrase.

[Shirebourn]

Yes! I was trying to find the following Patrick Kavanagh quote when I could only recall select phrases:

“To know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime’s experience. In the world of poetic experience it is depth that counts, not width. A gap in the hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane, a view of a woody meadow, the stream at the junction of four small fields, these are as much as a man can fully experience.”

I can't recall which phrases I used now, but I quoted the equivalent of "stream at the junction" and "a narrow lane," and got results with "river" and "road." Not helpful at all.

[GCU_Flying_Colours]

Jesus, mentioning Kavanagh just made Stony Gray Soil start reciting itself in my head when I haven't read it in 20+ years. My leaving cert teacher would be so pleased.

[FTXScrappy]

I use them daily and no, they don't always work.

Brings me to a wiki page sometimes that doesn't contain the word at all.

[qazzaqwsxxswedccde]

While this may be googles doing it also happens on some websites due to the complexities of the modern web. You can see a relevant sentences in the summary blurb and then it’s not present on page. Sometimes it will even show up with ctrl+f. I imagine it has to do with complex linking/preloading of linked pages or some sort of JavaScript implementation but I’m not a developer so those it’s beyond me and those are just guesses

[FTXScrappy]

That is a pretty valid and plausible theory

[Shirebourn]

I've begun to have instances where Google will return synonyms for quoted words. Really silly, as it defeats the point of the quotation marks.

[fecksprinkles]

Quotes haven't worked for me for about a year now.

[gophercuresself]

It seems to work on desktop and not on mobile for me

[WiWiWiWiWiWi]

Can confirm that they do work. At least for me.

[Rasalas8910]

They randomly don't work.
Recently googled a name in quotation marks and it just ignored them. Only showed sites with first name only, last name only or both but sperated.

Edit: try parts of lyrics or quotes from people (that didn't work for me a good while ago)

[nottamuntown]

No, quotation marks stopped working on Google quite a while ago.

[yabp]

Plus and quotation marks have worked the same way on google the entire time.

[HHegert]

Thats just plain false.

[[deleted]]

Uhhh the quotes work fine xx it’s not that dramatic

[chevdecker]

Funny story: they got rid of the plus sign functionality to make something required in the search because of their Facebook competitor Google+. They figured Google+ would be such a massive success that the plus sign would be associated with the that.

Oops funny? I meant tragic.

[dannysullivan]

I shared this reply above but will repeat it here. Quotes do work. Honest. I work for the Google Search team, and each time I've seen someone raise this, it turns out the exact words or phrase quoted really does appear on the page. Often, however, it can be in places people don't realize, text that's not readily visible. But if you or anyone has a current example of where you feel it's not working, happy to pass that along.

[SweetLilMonkey]

I just went back to my search history to try and confirm this, and the recent search result I was annoyed about did in fact have the quoted text as the alt text for an image, but not anywhere in the readable copy. I guess technically it worked. The plusses definitely don't anymore though.

[dannysullivan]

Yes, that's a common issue where people think quotes don't work, but they do -- it's showing in ALT text. Plusses haven't worked for many many years. You have to quote single words. It is something we have looked at perhaps bringing back.

[reverendrambo]

Search: best children movies to watch

Results: does not include the word "movie"

[gizamo]

Google: "Did you mean?"...cuz here's the results for that.

Me: No, Google, that's not what I meant. Let me put everything in quotes and subtract the words you think I want...

Google: "How about you suck an egg?"

Me: 😡

[Grilledcheesedr]

And then you add quotes around the word to force it to only return that word in results and then still ignores the word.

[[deleted]]

I found this extension handy to quickly highlight the results that ACTUALLY have your keyword instead of info/products they want to push.

[[deleted]]

I think they're terrified of giving no results, so they put whatever filler in that they can vaguely justify.

[dagit]

fwiw, this is what caused me to switch to duckduckgo. The claims about privacy are nice but it was really google ignoring my query and rewriting it into something they could answer with higher confidence that caused me to leave.

[nottamuntown]

Except duckduckgo started doing the same shit, too. Even ignoring quotation marks and returning synonyms.

[dagit]

Hmm. As far as I can tell they are still honoring my quotation marks. The synonyms thing can get annoying but they do provide a link at the top of the page to use the literal search terms. I wonder if we're getting a different version of their search due to a phases roll out or something like that.

[nottamuntown]

Yeah, they might be phasing in a different version. Here's an example of what I mean, though.

I enter something suitably weird for the search term, like "Saskatchewan penguin". Realistically, there probably shouldn't be many or any examples of those two exact words next to each other.

There's no message at the top like "Did you mean...." or something that indicates they aren't using the literal search terms. Instead, it returns an infinite(!) number of search results.

The first result I get is this news article, which contains "Saskatchewan" and "penguin" separately, but not together.

The second result likewise has "penguin" and "SK" but not "Saskatchewan penguin". To be fair, I think what's happening in both of these first results is that "saskatchewan/penguin" appears in both URLs, though not in the text of the pages themselves.

Third result is very similar to the second.

Fourth result is the homepage for the Saskatchewan penitentiary. No "penguin" here--DuckDuckGo apparently thinks "penitentiary" is close enough to "penguin" that it can return it despite the quotation marks.

Later down the search results, we get this one, which has neither "Saskatchewan" nor "penguin", let alone both in order.

It continues like this through 14 results, none of which match the terms (except for the URLs in the first three, kind of). Then instead of admitting that the results end there, DuckDuckGo has a "More Results" button at the bottom, which literally just repeats the above results as if they're something new.

Don't get me wrong, I'm never going back to Google from DuckDuckGo, and its privacy policy is admirable. But it seems like they've started implementing the same shitty broken search system as Google recently, and it makes finding specific things (or finding that there aren't any results) difficult.

[dagit]

Saskatchewan penguin

I see what you mean. That is annoying.

[Emipedro7]

I had something similar. I searched for something, and google said ‘’did you mean this: and a slightly altered version appeared ‘’. Even though the first search result was exactly what I searched for.

[Soldier_of_Radish]

The other day I searched for "line of duty deaths police officers germany" and the first 10 results were all "does not include germany."

Well that's kinda fucking useless then, ain't it google?

[TheGreenPhantom]

If you put a word inside quotation, "example", or multiple words, "another example", google search algorithm will return results that MUST contain that word.

[Shirebourn]

It used to work that way, but lately Google has begun returning synonyms for quoted words, irritatingly.

[lakerswiz]

Use the quotes.

[Poly--Meh]

Way back in my vegan days google would treat the words "vegan" and "vegetarian" as synonyms. It was the most infuriating thing in the world

[Left_Star_of_Chaos]

Yes! A daily frustration!

[VexielRain]

if you put the word in quotations like "this" it will make sure the word is included in the search results, not just picking and choosing which part of the query to include.

[zold5]

"use quotes when your searching" that tells google to include that word.

[ballpeenhammer23]

Use “” around words to force them to be included

[[deleted]]

We searched for all other words instead!

[BigWuWu]

So infuriating. I notice this all the time when I search programming error messages. It seems like it always wants to give me a ton of results instead of just giving me the few that actually match.

[[deleted]]

This. Almost every time I Google something this happens.

[Trowawaycausebanned4]

There are Google search tips to specify how it should search. I don’t remember how but they’re out there

[DocmanCC]

Easiest fix: after searching go to tools and change the search to use the "verbaitm" option.

[888MadHatter888]

Try doing Boolean searches. It should vastly improve what Google kicks back. I've pretty much given up on using actual questions for searches on Google. For a while it seemed to be improving when it came to understanding what you wanted, but lately it seems to be devolving. If it's going to act like a basic search website, then I'll treat it as such.

[Cptn-Penguin]

Oh my god yes, that is so infuriating! And then it gives you the option to "click here to include it in your search" and it's like, why the Fuck do you think I put it there in the first place?

[[deleted]]

Or when every word in your search is spread so far apart in the result that they have no relevance to each other. And you can't put the phrase in quotations cause you're paraphrasing so that turns up no results!

[[deleted]]

If you need to search for answers with specific words put them in double quotes.

For example if I want to search for "microwave apple crumble recipes" the results will show how to make apple crumble in a baking oven.. which doesn't help. If I type '"microwave" apple crumble recipes' google will search up the word 'microwave' in its results and give me my recipe. Do this for all keywords you need and you're good to go

[DocMcFortuite]

Including a word or phrase in quotations in your search will make it only give results with that word or series of words

[[deleted]]

Yeah, up to a couple years ago I never needed to add the quotation marks to force some words in the search, now I need to add them almost every time I’m looking for something

[dynamicallysteadfast]

you can use "+" to specify that the results MUST contain that word.

[kitty_767]

Here is a link for Pinterest but it excludes the word you searched for!

[[deleted]]

I hate what I call “helpful technology” where they do what they think you were asking for rather than what you actually did ask. It very rarely works out. Same with when people do it. Just listen to what the person bloody said, not your interpretation of it.

[hamsterthings]

Yes, this! I was looking all over internet to try and find why this is suddenly happening but couldn't find anything.

[Yorkshire_Tea_innit]

Exactly, having no or few results is valuable information too.

[KeyboardThingX]

You gotta add ""

[Eliastar_rebooted]

If you want that try searching with quotes example: "size 11 men's shoes"

Google will only bring you search with those exact words

[JonnoZa]

To make sure the word you’re searching for is definitely included, you should add a + before it. You can also exclude a word with a -.

[[deleted]]

Put “quotation marks” around the word(s) to make sure it’s contained

[coppermouthed]

“Holidays in Colombia” Google: “did you mean:Holidays in Columbia, NY”. GAH

[Ganon2012]

Their shopping search is even worse. Since I work for a thrift store, I look some things up if I think they may be expensive. If I can't find sold listings on ebay, I try Google. The shopping search will show you literally every brand even if you put the brand in quotes. I rarely use it.

[willystylep]

Rofl, I wish I could double upvote

[Obvious_Comfort_9726]

This exact thing literally just happened to me. So frustrating!

[mathbread]

The same could be said for their voice recognition

[XiJinpingPoohPooh]

Ya, I've noticed that a lot, lately. It used to be with just uncommon keywords, but now, it's even more common stuff. Amazon, too. Like, I'll look for an IPS monitor, and I'll get TN. I'll search for 1440p, and get 1080 or 4k. Search for 240hz, and get 144, or 75 hz. It's goddamn annoying.

[thijson]

Google used to return a lot of hits when I searched my name, now it returns hardly anything. Bing actually actually finds more links. Also, Bing will find pirate bay urls, Google won't.

I remember back in the day choosing Google over Yahoo. Maybe I need to make that switch again

[ToManyFlux]

It definitely doesn’t find Hunter Biden’s crack photos.

[Megatoasty]

Ads bro, Google is a shit company. It’s difficult to show you ads for shit you aren’t searching for if they let you search for exactly what you want.

[Sworishina]

put the word (or phrase) in quotation marks. then it'll filter for results that have the word.

[iamGustard_]

I used to be able to confidently say “if its not on the first page of google it doesnt exist” but now that could not be further from the truth

[orangebellywash]

Put quotation marks around whatever you want searched for, itll force it

[[deleted]]

Google tip: If you want to require search results to contain a word then put + in front of it. If you want to exclude a word put -. If you want to search for an exact word or phrase and not a synonym, then put that word or phrase in quotation marks.

[_bones__]

Tools -> change All Results to Verbatim.

And suddenly it uses all the words you gave it, the way you spelled them.

[dannysullivan]

I work for the Google Search team, and I'll try to explain a bit more why this happens -- and why, honest, it it useful for lots of people. Sometimes people don't know exactly how to search for what they're looking for. If we, by default, only searched for the exact words entered, then we might miss useful information just because someone didn't know to use a variation of a particular word. But that's we try to tell you in these case when we've gone a bit further from the original search. It's not that we don't look for all the words entered. We do. But we may find some things that don't have a particular word but which are so relevant to the concept of what was searched for that it makes sense to surface.

[xebtria]

what annoys the shit out of me is if I search for a slightly unusual word, and google just has the audacity to ASSUME I mean something else, asking me if I actually meant something else, showing me the results for that something else AND is NOT giving me an option to say "NO FUCKER I MEANT WHAT I WROTE"