Just using quotes usually was enough to make these words/phrases “required”. However, I believe there was a change (last year?) where they now sprinkle in other “relevant” results.

My problem is that I didn't need to do that and now I have to do it more and more. That also mean I need to do two searches minimum instead of one.

Yeah they’d thrown that baby out with the bathwater because Google+ had wanted to use it.

"Throwing the baby out with the bathwater" means trying too hard to do something good but accidently overdoing it!?

Just to make sure we're not accidentally giving Google a break, Google+ ended in 2019, if they cared for search at all they would have brought back this feature.

Yeah I used the wrong phrase definitely. I was thinking of screwing it up. :)