> I have no idea what kind of metrics lead Google towards fixating on the most generic terms of a search
Total shot in the dark, but I'm guessing that interpreting a query string more generically allows Google to serve up a broader collection of ads.
There used to be an operator in search engines of yore (including Google, iirc) that specified, basically, "expand beyond exact matches" to include synonyms and such, maybe "~". Google has basically inverted that, so exact matching requires explicit input. I also find it frustrating.
Matching query terms against content vs ads has always been separate. On the ads side there a pretty complex systems to expand the query to match more.
Total shot in the dark, but I'm guessing that interpreting a query string more generically allows Google to serve up a broader collection of ads.
There used to be an operator in search engines of yore (including Google, iirc) that specified, basically, "expand beyond exact matches" to include synonyms and such, maybe "~". Google has basically inverted that, so exact matching requires explicit input. I also find it frustrating.