> It seems that search engines now are always trying to guess your intent, and always think they know better. And yet more than ever, I struggle to find relevant search results.
The "always think they know better" is the issue IME. I'm fine with search engine trying to be smarter, but the paternalistic "no I think you want <completely unrelated thing>" is what bites.
And not only does it not work when I know what I'm looking for (because it gives me something else entirely), it doesn't work when I'm not quite sure either e.g. from time to time I dimly remember an interesting comment about something but don't quite remember the wording so I look for something similar, and never in my life has the search engine been able to guess it.
Which is fair enough, don't get me wrong, but then why mess with what I know I'm looking for when you're patently unable to guess when I don't?
> For example, I enter a search term, and I'll get many results back that don't even contain the search terms.
That is also my experience. It's also one of the issues I have with duckduckgo, AFAIK it ignores quoting entirely.
The "always think they know better" is the issue IME. I'm fine with search engine trying to be smarter, but the paternalistic "no I think you want <completely unrelated thing>" is what bites.
And not only does it not work when I know what I'm looking for (because it gives me something else entirely), it doesn't work when I'm not quite sure either e.g. from time to time I dimly remember an interesting comment about something but don't quite remember the wording so I look for something similar, and never in my life has the search engine been able to guess it.
Which is fair enough, don't get me wrong, but then why mess with what I know I'm looking for when you're patently unable to guess when I don't?
> For example, I enter a search term, and I'll get many results back that don't even contain the search terms.
That is also my experience. It's also one of the issues I have with duckduckgo, AFAIK it ignores quoting entirely.