[StrictDabbler]

Oh, that's what's going on. If I search, for example, "proton transfer balalaika" I get search results where the first few results are "Missing: balalaika | Must include: balalaika" but a result after these has all three search terms.

I've been wondering what Google now thinks the word "must" means and why they're putting pages that don't include words that I've used above pages that do.

That's frustrating. Low-volume sites represent a significant portion of the web results I need.

[cygaril]

The "must include" is a hyperlink. Click it and you'll get results that do include that word.

[StrictDabbler]

You know, it's obvious it's a link, and I'm pretty sure I clicked on it and noted it adds the quotes then immediately forgot.

I'm sitting here looking at it now and I still can't believe that's the function. It looks like a link to a search of just that term.

Of course, even when I click on it, I get ads for hotels that are missing "proton" and "transfer" first, then random word dictionaries, both well above perfectly valid results talking about chemists who played the balalaika or research done in the city of Balalaika.

Which means that it's a link to getting a different wrong set of results and it's there as a kind of fig leaf on the sin of distorting searches so heavily.

[pbhjpbhj]

>and noted it adds the quotes then immediately forgot.

I quoted search terms yesterday, but still had to specify by clicking the link "must include" .. first result still didn't include one of the terms.

Come on Google, what is this?

I suppose that top hit earned them money; can't think why else they'd be deceptive about it.