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I think it’s primarily for people copying and pasting something like an error message, which may have user-specific data in quotes. That should be what “not many results for...” is for, but Google is always trying to optimize away those clicks. Maybe they could add a “programatic” search feature with documented syntax for power users.


A moderate-length string of quoted words (>5?) used to return zero or near zero results and a suggestion to try without quotes- imo ideal


Power users aren't where the money is.


Maybe they should go back to +


Add? They used to have one and actively removed it.


I am always surprised that these systems are not more friendly to engineers, since they were built by them. You'd think for their own sakes they'd stick in a system like xkcd.com/806/




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