ok so

(1) the language of search queries (for, e.g., google) came into existence because of the keyword-oriented tech originally driving those dbs

(2) over the past ~25 years millions have become very "fluent" at speaking search-engine-ese

(3) contemporary language understanding is capable of parsing queries in more natural phrasings

(4) but many/most users still use search-engine-ese, so search engines are probably still being optimized to return better and better results for those users