> For me it began with their removal of the + search operator (to boost google+ organic traffic from google). Google say they removed it because most searches

> For me it began with their removal of the + search operator (to boost google+ organic traffic from google). Google say they removed it because most searches that included a plus operator were using it wrong. https://search.googleblog.com/2011/11/search-using-your-terms-verbatim.html https://search.googleblog.com/2011/11/search-using-your-term... > In most cases, Google’s algorithms make things better for our users - but in some rare cases, we don’t find what you were looking for. In the past, we provided users with the “+” operator to help you search for specific terms. However, we found that users typed the “+” operator in less than half a percent of all searches, and two thirds of the time, it was used incorrectly. A couple of weeks ago we removed the “+” operator, encouraging the use of the double quotes, which are more likely to be used correctly. I'd be intersted to know how often the "quotes" are used correctly.