This isn't really the solution we were looking for Matt.
Can we replace the + operator with something else? How about¬? We don't use that very often to the point I don't even know what it's called, but it's there on the keyboard in one keypress.
I'll pass the feedback on. Part of the issue with + is that it turned out a lot of people were mistyping queries with + when as far as we could tell, they weren't trying to match an exact word. Getting further off the beaten path with a more rare character might help though.
Surely simpler soultion would have been to respond to a search for "+this is a +search" with:
Showing results for this is a search
Search instead for +this is a +search
As google does for other "typos".
Failing that, a replacement for + would be welcome. I can't imagine many people type, for example ^word or =word - allowing use of a symbol that indicates promotion of that word word in the search terms, they way + did.
The difficulty will be reeducating the (presumably quite large number of - even if proportionally a small percentage of googles user base) people who have been using + in searches for the last 10-15 years (I'm almost positive this concept existed in other search engines before google) that + isn't + any more, and please use this other symbol instead.
Currently Google offers me the ability to change the background image on the Google home page.
How about the ability to use something like Google "classic" with the old way of using the + sign?
Hide it as an off-home page selection, that way only people who really want it will choose it.
I'd also be interested in something similar for an "advanced search syntax" mode. Probably not very useful for the majority of people, but could be something a minority might be very passionate about.
Exclamation point? (!this !word !exactly, !darnit!) Or a double exclamation point if that's still too common...
It really was nice to be able to control which words were verbatim and which weren't. Quotes are perfectly logical but just a pain to retrofit onto a query you're refining.
Can we replace the + operator with something else? How about¬? We don't use that very often to the point I don't even know what it's called, but it's there on the keyboard in one keypress.