I used to use google extensively for research purposes for verifying data and correlating it etc. I started back in the days when google could only use 10 words in a query. I did have access to a better search engine at that time, but usually it was the first engine of choice and then I'd double check with a few other search engines just to be sure. Often a search query would result in the order of 50 results I might pursue and open in additional tabs after looking though the top 1000 results (10 pages of 100 results each.) This allowed me to skip over the gaming of search results often enough. Since I spent the day doing this one would think I'd avoid any more while online at night, but since there were often forums that needed information - documentation, it sort of became my niche function at a few forums I've joined ... but slowly google made using multiple switches together harder (you're a bot) and eventually many of those switches became somewhat pointless / broken.
Lets skip to present time ... compared to even when I pulled the pin on it a few years ago, it's a shadow of once what was, good for ordinary run of the mill topic matters that most other search engines can do. it should understand quotes means the word and not resort to verbatim which my experience interferes with time ranges.
I'm just waiting on a search engine to be able to do what old pre 2010 google could do. Blocking sites was really nice -site:foo.bar scum.com dingbat.nuts scam.central ... easy peasy. I recall google easily handling 15 or so waste of time sites that would pop up in certain documentation searches - and IIRC at once stage it was handling maybe 20 or so until it didn't.
Edit to add: P.S. I no longer do research work or at personal forums offer to search.