Beth Skwarecki writes: “Google has gotten worse at showing us useful search results. Google tries to be helpful by searching for words that are similar to those you are searching for (and, more cynically, they may try to be helpful to advertisers by funneling your interests into things that advertisers want to sell you). Lately, those adjustments seem to have gotten a lot broader, giving us off-target searches. Enter the verbatim option. This isn’t new, but it’s become even more important recently.”