Actually when a single word is quoted in a google search it does something - it turns off the matching of words against similar words.

For example if you search for the misspelled [netflixs] you will still get netflix.com, but you can turn that off by quoting the word with the query ["netflixs"]. The plus sign works similarly.

Compare:

http://www.google.com/search?q=netflixs

http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22netflixs%22