[Question] What is your internet search methodology ?

I feel like the heuristics we use to search random tat on the internet are an incredibly larger part of our lives.

I wouldn’t make a claim as extended as “googling skills are on the largest determinants of success in life”, but I wouldn’t look very suspiciously at someone that tried to make it either.

So I’m rather curios what the “search methodology” of people here is.

Let me try to give an example by detailing mine, it’s non-ideal since I apply it mainly subconsciously, but that’s why I’m looking to improve it, also I’m probably missing some things ,but again, this is just an example not a claim that it’s in any way “good.

a) Find a phrasing that is < 5-6 word long and type it into google
b) If a certain key word isn’t showing up quote it
c) If am looking for a specific type of discussing type the name of a form together with it (e.g. LessWrong: Fobar falacy, SSC: edgy political thing, Reddit: Corporate sponsored product review, StackOverflow: copy paste of a tiny part of the debug log which I hope is unique enough for my problem)
d) If what I’m looking for seem high-falutin to be considered “scientific” consider google scholar instead
+ ublock origin with strict settings, disable 3rd party cookies, container addons for e.g. google and fb in order to somewhat limit amount of ads
+ sci-hub now for quicker paper reading (basically you just click it, it tires to find the doi of the abstract you are looking at and opens it in a scihub tag)

For me, at least, thinking of this requires trying to observe myself and query my subconscious, rather than thinking about it the same way I think about explicit actions/​choices.

I’d wager it’s the same for many people and thus a lot of critical components might be missing… but, there’s not much that can be done about that.