Photos doesn't see keywords etc.

Which version of Photos are you using?

In the older versions of Photos the search field did not always present all results. Then it. helped to use a smart album "Fiel > New Smart album" and use the rule "Keyword is ...."

That is working usually better. I always keep a smart album in the sidebar just for searching.

if you are now using Photo 3.0, searching for keywords is faster and more reliable, if you are using the filters.

Or, if you have High Sierra installed, you can use the "Filter" to search for keywords. This is working better than the search field. The filter "Showing Only" will show a list of all keywords that you add to the Quick Group in the Keywords Manager. Just set the checkmark for the keyword you want to search for in the "Showing Only" drop down list.

For example: To search for photos of a bear, I click "Bear" in the list of Quick Group keywords:

Using the filters you can refine the search easily and filter albums as well.

Then it is still buggy, even on the most recent High Sierra version. Sometimes it helps to quit Photos and to log off and on, to force Photos to write all updates to the Photos Library. And then to repeat the search. Otherwise, let's hope, that the next version of Photos to be released with macOS 10.14 Mojave will fix this bug.

This is strange, if you are already running High Sierra 10.13.6. With this system version the search for keywords is working better for me than in the earlier versions.

Have you checked, if the filter below the search field is set to "All items"? If it is set to "Favorites" or similar, you would be seeing less search results.

I just don't get how anyone inside Apple could not see that an inability to search is anything but a major problem for users.

Either the problem did not arise during the Beta tests or it is really hard to fix. We cannot know. It does not seem to hit all users.

It should not happen, you are right. I prefer to use the filters anyway. The filters are finally a nice addition and remember me of the luxury we had in Aperture. Now, if we only could have a neat list view with metadata in columns like in Aperture, so we can sort by any metadata in any view, without having to run Power Photos as a companion to Photos, I could be happy with Photos.