[Retr0id]

They don't necessarily have to inflate their indexes. Backtick-quoted results ought to be a subset of double-quoted results, so they can use the standard quoted search algorithm, and then filter out imperfect matches from those results.

[mkl]

Google searches ignore punctuation, so it's not even indexed, so there's no way to search for punctuation without inflating the index

[Retr0id]

Read what I said. They can use the standard index, then filter the results as a last pass.

[mkl]

I did read what you said. Imagine trying to search for

  [::]

as 8192kjshad09- suggested earlier in the thread. What standard index results are you going to filter? Since "[::]" isn't in the index, you won't have anything to go on. To do your back-tick really-verbatim searches, the index has to be enlarged.

[Retr0id]

Ah, sorry, I see what you mean.