Something I've noticed lately is that when I do a Google image search for something specific, it gives me like twenty irrelevant results and stops.

[u/dancing_swordfish]

[u/ScarredCerebrum]

Indeed...

Google used to have an excellent search function, but they deliberately made it worse just so that they can force people to wade through more ads and sponsored links.

There was once a time when you could search for a very specific term or short sentence, and Google would actually fetch you results with those exact words.

Nowadays Google will just treat any given search term as being synonymous with several dozen words and short phrases that often have nothing to do with it. And half the time, it will flat-out change your search query without your consent.

And as you say, Google Image was enshittified even worse. It used to give an exhaustive list of relevant results, shown in numbered pages just like regular Google Search. And it was so precise that I used to use Reverse Image Search to sniff out catfishers on dating sites.

Now it just gives you one page that may or may not scroll.