I've found that even quotes don't always work with Google these days. Google's insistence on returning results to more popular, but distinctly different, queries than what I actually searched for is what finally prompted me to switch over to DDG full time.
Overall I've found DDG results are actually better and less frustrating than Google's for this exact reason.
That's funny because unlike DDG, Google actually works with quotes.
I have yet to find a Google query where Google ignores the quotes (it even goes as far as telling me it can't find anything).
DDG, on the other hand, decided a few months ago that their users are dumb and only mistakenly tried to force part of their query. It's really annoying me because it's what makes me use !g more than anything else.
> I have yet to find a Google query where Google ignores the quotes (it even goes as far as telling me it can't find anything).
Happened again and again to me until late last year or something.
Don't know what happened but I do have an tip that might help (and might be a nice idea for some of you):
time and time again I observed weird behaviour from Google (ignoring quotes, excessive fuzzing of search terms etc).
After living with it for a while I'd report it and be surprised by how fast they'd fix it.
And after thinking about it I realized that no way Google is listening to me.
What I'm pretty sure has happened is that time and time again I've been selected for all sorts of stupid A/B tests and when I report a bug what happens is I her added to a queue that removes me from the latest lame experiment a few hours later.
As others I finally left, but I sometimes do a !g and lately Google has gone back to more honestly reporting 0 hits to me when I search for stuff like "some really long and rkfjjfjfirirjrjfjfjfjfj improbable sentence".
As for why they've stopped experimenting with me I don't know.
But thanks for helping me finally move on :-)
And if Google is acting up, report a bug. Any bug. Most likely Google will magically "fix" it within a few hours.
It's weird that I've had the exact opposite experience, but you aren't the only person posting that quotes always work for them on Google. I've definitely had them return irrelevant results that did not include quoted terms, but can't remember an example off of the top of my head.
I think it would be helpful if I (or anyone else reading this) saved some examples for the next time this discussion comes up.
I have no concrete examples, but even with '+"term"' I've had google return results with "ten" bolded as if it matched, with "term" nowhere on the page.
EDIT: Not those exact terms obviously, but that degree of "That's almost completely different to what I typed!"
Overall I've found DDG results are actually better and less frustrating than Google's for this exact reason.