Regarding the quotes, I actually notice they do work. However the difference is that it doesn't highlight where the string was matched in the search result index page.

So for example if you google "Food", all the results _will_ contain the string "Food" somewhere in the page (if you don't believe me, try it). It can also match somewhere in the comments or metadata which is useless..

So the feature is still there but it's nowhere as useful as it once was.

I recall a Google engineer who confirmed this once but maybe one of them lurking in the thread can clarify it?