[brianshaler]

For me it's when they stopped showing results that include your keywords and instead a random smattering of anything broadly related to the topic being searched for.

[jvolkman]

You can use quotes around keywords.

https://blog.google/products/search/how-were-improving-searc...

[jdgoesmarching]

I’ve had google searches disregard my quoted query.

[dekhn]

even quotes don't work 100% of the time- if there is strong signal to show another result, it will be shown even if it isn't a quote-match. Previous user clicks are the top ranking signal.

IIUC "verbatim mode" is supposed to do something like this. https://search.googleblog.com/2011/11/search-using-your-term...

[zbrozek]

When I use Google search-which is rare these days-I exclusively use verbatim mode.

[geraldcombs]

This shifted from "can" to "absolutely have to" a long time ago for my use cases.

[otabdeveloper4]

Often it's not even related at all.

For example, Google often prioritizes obscure music bands or albums even for generic or well-known terms.