Google search is so bad compared to peak google.

Maybe the web is really that much worse, and the SEO tactics so hostile to genuine content.

But, honestly...just bring back the old google, where I have all kinds of search modifiers to perform exactly the search I want, that just returns all the matching results that have been indexed. Let me sort out the rest. How do you remove the ability to do "exact text search"? It's the most basic of search functions. Remember having "|" modifiers? AND modifiers?

If google launched that again, even as a separate engine, I think they'd have a good product again. Maybe being good doesn't pay the bills for google, though.