Not necessarily search engines, but to find things out or even researching a topic.
In that case, here's my advice:
1) The important principle, whether you're dealing with an electronic or printed source, is how likely is this information to be correct. Sources of information may be:
- written by one person who has no particular expertise, working on their own
- written by a person who is an expert in their field or who has direct knowledge of something they've witnessed or created, working on their own
- written by a person whose work is reviewed by an editor
- written by a person whose work is reviewed by multiple expert reviewers in a double-blind review process
The information tends to get more reliable as you move further down this list.
2) As you probably know, the Internet is a scrambled mix of expertise and rubbish. A Google search is a good starting point for finding something out, especially if it's a non-controversial fact you're looking up (What is the capital of Nevada?), but it's important to look at the level of expertise and editorial review in the sites you find.
3) Books, physical books, are a good way to learn about something if you want to know a subject in depth. A 200-page book has more space to explain its ideas thoroughly than a 2-screen-long blog post. Books have also usually gone through some kind of review process, where at least an editor, and maybe also expert reviewers, have looked at the text and corrected some of the errors.
4) So, if you just need to find out a quick fact, or even a quick explanation of a non-controversial idea, Google's great. If you want to understand something more deeply, like how to interpret the Bible, then I suggest using Google as a starting point but not an ending point. Google your topic or question, and then look at the published sources they cite, and then pick out a couple of those books and read the books. (Amazon can be a quick way of looking at a book to decide whether it's interesting or useful to read.) If you have an area that you want to study in depth, you can Google a phrase like "Reformed commentaries on the book of Romans" (or whatever your interest is), or enter a phrase like that at Amazon, and that will often turn up useful books.
Tl;dr: Start with Google, but don't stop with Google. Books are still a great invention, generally having more accuracy and completeness than web sites. Read the Kindle versions if you prefer an electronic interface.
