So true. Search engines have weird quirks. The above is a common problem. By design, many merchants label or tag their listings so as to appear in as many searches as possible in the hopes of drawing in more customers. Sometimes the opposite happens--you search the wrong town name and you DON'T get listings from places very close by because they're under another town name.
I was searching on Google, using a particular phrase. I put it in quotes since I only wanted that exact phrase. But Google added synonyms I did not want, flooding me with unwanted 'matches'.
Also, sometimes you want the word 'and' used in the search, not as a Boolean operator.
must be widely
The old Bell System Yellow Pages was very profitable. But AFAIK, that was never regulated and anyone could put out a "yellow pages" and charge whatever they wanted for ads. You are correct that if multiple Yellow Pages (or even White Pages) are published the utlity will greatly diminish.
But I must admit I'm not a fan of the Yellow Pages since it got tacky. Maybe my town was late, but I don't like ads for "massage parlors", nor double page color ads by lawyers "WE WILL GET MONEY FOR YOU!".