Unfortunately this generation google is getting less proficient at search as well. It’s like it treats the search term as a vague idea and any syntax as a non binding suggestion.
That is as much monetary as it is a response to consumers.
I read an article a few weeks ago that - ironically - now I can’t find when searching for it, because all the search results are crowded by SEO blogspam. (Even though I’m using exact phrases I recall from the article!)
The gist of the article was that while your search terms are displayed in the address bar, Google will opaquely substitute words, add ‘invisible’ search terms in that it doesn’t tell you it’s added, or otherwise alter its search metrics to return results that are more heavily laden with advertisements and/or sites that advertise with Google Ads.
If a straightforward search no longer renders straightforward results, then there’s not a good feedback mechanism for users to learn how to be better at searching. We all are just getting rolled by the algorithm to look at advertisements.
I imagine folks who remember when the internet was good will take this as Google now being bad, but folks who don’t/aren’t of that age will just assume the internet always worked poorly. It might be why LLM’s are acceptable as “AI” despite their flaws.
And many sites use seo to attract traffic but dont have any content you are actually looking for. And ads.
And Google has moved on to simply deciding what to search for you by changing your search terms in the background.