Google Search Tip #1 (the first in an occasional series of searching tips)

If you insist on starting out a search for authoritative web sites using a search engine such as Google or Yahoo Search:

• Use the Advanced search instead of the basic search. You can fine tune searches to eliminate thousands of irrelevant pages.
• Limit the search to a specified DOMAIN, such as .edu (universities and colleges), or .org (organizations, advocacy groups, etc.)
• Try searching just for .pdf documents or PPT (Powerpoint) presentations.
• Think about the date range for a moment. If you are only interested in information that can be found on recently added documents or web pages, you can set your search for the past 7 days, for example, or a range of dates.
  

Note that these strategies will not automatically assure that authoritative, timely, substantive web sites will come up, but they increase the odds a bit.