You can get great results [and unfortunately some that are not so great] when searching the internet depending upon how you go about it.
The secret to getting great results, with quality information, is to know what you are looking for and use effective searches.
Focus On Your Topic
Click here to run a canned Google search [that uses the search argument "how to use google search"] and you will be presented with a selection of the most up to date results available.
Several sites will be displayed, including an important one [somewhere near the top] that comes from the Google Support team.
If you'd like to see the latter then just click here and get the facts "straight from the horses mouth".
It is well worth taking the time to digest this information first, then if you feel like it, you can go on to read through some of the other results from the canned search that will provide you with different views and examples.
Focused Example
To obtain the best results for information about something like your smartphone use a focused search term that includes your smartphone's make and model and maybe the word manual or guide. e.g. If you search for "Google Pixel Manual" you get things like this.
Researching Topics
Click here for more focused advice from the HowToGeek guys on ways to go about researching a topic effectively.
Using quotation marks can help to search for a specific phrase.
It could be, for instance, somebody's name. If you search for "John Smith" in quotation marks, Google will only show you results with that full name.
If you searched it without quotation marks, it would show you thousands more results for pages which happen to have the words "John" and "Smith" in.
You can use a vertical bar (|) or simply a capped-up "OR" to tell Google you only want it to show one of several search terms.
For instance, if you searched for "BBC OR ITV", or "BBC | ITV", it would bring up individual results either only to do with the BBC or only to do with ITV.
If you used a lower case "or" to search "BBC or ITV", Google just produces a load of results comparing the two stations.
Use two dots to search for anything between two numbers.
For instance: "movies 2000..2020" will bring results to do with movies between 2000 and 2020.
If you want to exclude a particular term from your results you can use a dash.
Put the word you want to search for first, then a space and dash, followed by the word you want to exclude.
For instance, if you wanted to search for Manchester but did not want anything to do with Manchester United, you would search: Manchester -United
You can use "site:" to search for information within a particular site only.
For instance, you may search: Katie Price site:thesun.co.uk
Find out about news in a particular location using "location:".
For instance, you may search: Elon Musk location:san francisco
Use tilde (the squiggly line) when you want synonyms to appear in the result.
For instance you could search: music ~classes
It could bring up results including music classes, lessons, coaching etc.
And you can even narrow down what filetype Google brings up in its results.
For instance, you could search: piers morgan filetype:pdf
And it would only bring up PDF files with the former Good Morning Britain host's name in, including the recent Ofcom ruling.