Inference isn't evidence. Inference is drawn from evidence and is an educated guess. A guess is not evidence. You fell for the clickbait headline of a pdf.
Lack of evidence is always weak evidence for evidence of lack, and pretty strong evidence if you've looked hard enough. If you've trawled through loch Ness with a fine toothed comb for decades and haven't seen Nessie, well then that's pretty good evidence for lack of monster.
You're confusing correlation with causation. Regarding your point about searching - Have you ever lost your keys, searched for a long time without finding them, then found them by happenstance at a later point when not looking? Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.
You know what I love about the internet? You think something like this, and you just know somebody's looked into it in some details :D - https://cocosci.princeton.edu/papers/absentData.pdf