But let's also logically assume that most content on the web is telling the visitor what their page or product is, not what it is not.

I would expect a shirt to be advertised and described as what it is: “black shirt” not “shirt without stripes.”

So if a content creator does not include the exact term “without stripes” in the description of shirt, then you are relying on google to infer meaning on your behalf and the content creator.

Now, this is relatively inconsequential for a shirt and perhaps not well representative, as a fashion-related searches a different than many searches. If I search for “news without coronavirus,” should I expect only articles that do not refer to coronavirus? I wouldn’t.

If I was allergic to peanuts and I searched for “food without peanuts,” I would expect results from content creators and sellers of products who took care to include the term “without peanuts,” because they are advertising their product as safe for those with peanut allergies. I would not rely on google or amazon to make that determination for me.

Both for google and individual sites, there are better options to further narrow results. If you don’t want to narrowly define your result to a specific pattern or color, the first search more broadly and then used advanced settings or filters to omit terms and/or include others.