User blog comment:Dopp/Updates to How We Search/@comment-957747-20120427001220/@comment-957747-20120427021832

Because the functionalities are completely different. As a coder, I know that having the option for both of them in this situation is simply not feasible. It's not something as simple as a toggle to search through namespaces.

Wikia doesn't do these changes on a whim. As I said above, this change benefits more people than it hinders. It makes sense that the search bar should return search results for any keywords placed in it. The former functionality was an accessibility feature to navigate the user to the intended page. This, however, inhibits the search bar to actually search for terms if a page exists with the same name. Even Wikipedia does the same for search results.