[stickfigure]

I would be willing to bet substantial sums of money that Google tracks metrics for these alternative results and has concluded that they add value to the user. Maybe not to you, but to most people.

Personally, I'm ok with a bit of "oh, this is what I think you meant" rather than a literal interpretation of my query. It's not perfect but neither are my queries.

[bobsomers]

> I would be willing to bet substantial sums of money that Google tracks metrics for these alternative results and has concluded that they add value to the user.

And I would be willing to be substantial sums of money that any metrics Google has with respect to "adding value to the user" are actually more directly track "adding value to the business".

[kempbellt]

I would imagine that "adding value to the user" translates to "adding value to the business" in a lot of ways for Google.

If, on average, users perceive more value from Google, they use Google more, and Google earns more ad rev. Even if this lowers value substantially for the "relative few".

It's basic utilitarianism, and it sucks to be in the "relative few"...

I too, wish that quotes were respected, and Google would stop giving results for what it thinks I meant to search for like it knows what I meant better than I do - even if that is the case...sometimes.

[Retric]

That assumes people consider alternatives to Google viable.

Right now maximizing the number of searches people preform even if it degrades overall search quality is probably the goal.

[reaperducer]

has concluded that they add value to the user.

Not the user. To Google.

Marginal search results adds value for Google because it keeps people searching, which is how Google makes its money. If you find what you want, you stop feeding money into Google.

Google can do this because it has a virtual monopoly on search. If a strong competitor were to emerge, Google couldn't play these revenue optimization games, and would have to go back to being a search engine.

[WalterBright]

I'm ok with fuzzy searches, but there should be a switch for verbatim.

[bentcorner]

I certainly have moments where I don't quite know how to ask what I'm looking for and badly describe it in a query: e.g. "flat thing you use for cooking" - google seems to understand what I'm looking for, whereas bing/ddg guide me more towards cooking tools with the word "flat" in them.

I usually use ddg but I do find google useful for the more weird queries I have.