It’s so frustratingly bad. I “-“ a search term and it’s in the title of the first dozen results nonetheless. DDG is slightly better (they say “-“ creates fewer results with the term, not none) and it’s only one in the top 3 say. Say you want to do -order but have switch or rearrange in your search. You’re just SOL on Google. It thinks these terms are interchangeable, related enough, so it overrides -order completely.

I think you’re right. I became computer illiterate by using Google.