[dredmorbius]

The fact that Wikipedia exists, is frequently (though not always) quite good, has citations and references, and ranks highly or is used directly for "instant answers" ...

... still does nothing to answer the point that Web search itself is unambiguously and consistently poorer now than it was 5-10 years ago.

Yes, I find myself relying far more on specific domain searches, either in the Internet sense, or by searching for books / articles on topics rather than Web pages. Because so much more traditionally-published information is online, this actually means the net of online-based search has improved, but not for the most part because of improved Web-oriented resources (Webpages, discussions, etc.), but because old-school media is now Web-accessible.

[sifar]

This. More and more, I have been finding that good books provide better learning than the internet.

You search for quality books online, mostly through discussion forums as search fails here, or through following references of books and articles. Then spend time digesting them.