Sometimes I search a two word phrase and all the results show both words aren't included and I have to quote both words.
I'm South African but when searching for something local, it shows results from other countries that are irrelevant in the current context.
That's the main problem, Google Search is dumb and doesn't understand context. I wanted to convert $2.75/gallon to Rands and litres but instead it shows 726.473144 U.S. dollars / m³. What on earth is that supposed to mean to me? No search engine is intelligent enough to give the answer I want though. It should.
I know someone is going to mention Kagi, I don't want to pay $100 a year. I'm complaining about Google's worsening results.
It has greatly changed over the last five years into something which is a mere shadow of what google search once was. One of the main drivers is there's no real competition in the long run of things ... I use duckduckgo atm (since about 2016 or so as the primary search) - but my searches present times are merely for myself and usually dead basic. They've finally (I can't recall how many years ago - my useless memory thinks three but ...) got a site operator / switch and I note -site:{site or region} works which can be darn handy - but again pales into what google could do back in around 2010, multiple site suppression queries plus a couple (a number depending on the overall length of full query submitted) of other operator switches.
You might want for local stuff to use site:za in your search query ... works in DDG too.
The blame for a drop off of good searches also doesn't lie merely on a seemingly lacklustre attitude that has grown, the other stumbling block is websites themselves, many which are no longer even text browser friendly, and created by web developers who have gone back to thinking bright and wonderful trumps all, no matter if a web page with a mere 100 words burn up considerable bandwidth and time to process bloated delivery mechanisms (code) and no quick and ready means to snatch just the text. Bandwidth is something any web scraper has to consider. My guess is the web sites really don't want users to bypass their scripts.
Actually I think the next thing on searches will be the ability to turn off results from sites that are bloated / no "full" book mode / no if no java then print text view. I'd almost pay for that ... if the situation gets worse, then probably.
Conversion tools are not that available when it involves two or more additional factors, simply for the fact from what I've noted most are created as simple one dimensional conversion tools, leaving the user to do the legwork, for example, applying the day's exchange rates after receiving the conversion of number of gallons in litres.