That's if they don't disregard your query and just return results for whatever they deemed to be close enough. So if you search for Simone Something, it will just disregard what you wrote and just return tons of Simon Something even if there's no shortage of results for your actual query! It's incredible that even when searching for a specific real person/name Google still assumes it knows better and just throw out letters arbitrarily. It would only be reasonable to do so if there are 0 results for the exact name or maybe just a "did you mean?" prompt for suspected typos.

It never used to do that before and that's the most frustrating part imo

it's done that for a long time, and you've always been able to force a match by wrapping a word in quotes.

(I don't think it's a 100% "must have this keyword" in the boolean sense, but it is an extremely strong suggestion to the engine.)

Maybe we have finally reached the point where people don't know boolean operators anymore though

>you've always been able to force a match by wrapping a word in quotes

This no longer works very well. A while ago I was searching for the linux syscall which is identified in the manpages as 'splice(2)'

If I didn't include quote marks, I basically got pages of junk.

If I did include quote marks I basically got a page of junk and then a single relevant link halfway down the second page followed by another page and a half of junk.

I know to use 'verbatim' now but still very much a downgrade in terms of user experience.

I thought verbatim was supposed to be wrapped in " not , '

But to your point, strict "___" searches do not seem to be respected as much anymore.

We have reached the point where google ignores them.