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Watching Operator drift Mar 4, 2026

Google is randomly dropping search operators

We’re seeing site: + inurl: combos return completely different result sets on repeated identical requests. Same query, same parameters, no personalization.

site:reddit.com inurl:comments IPL AND (results OR pain) returns subreddit pages (not comment threads) on some runs, with all operators explicitly listed as “Missing:” by Google. Other runs return IPL hair removal content from r/HairRemoval. The query is clearly being rewritten server-side.

The same pattern shows up with allintitle:, after:, and before: date filters. Google appears to be selectively softening operator-heavy queries on some fraction of requests. Possibly tightening scraper defenses.