I have been using Kagi for a while now. Something I have noticed recently is that it ignores a lot more of the words in my search queries, I felt the same thing with google over time, it shows results it thinks I want not the things I want.
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.
"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.
Yep, either it's gotten worse or they lied about not tracking your history, as it has gotten worse over time and I have found myself adding !g much more lately.