When I was doing research projects for my undergraduate degree we primarily used the web differently. 0. First thing we would search is the Arxiv front end http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/ . Usually we would have a researcher in mind. If we didn't then we would look at Wikipedia. 1. We would use wikipedia to get general knowledge and information about the topic. Sometimes lecture notes and presentations would be looked at too but we would eventually get to papers. 2. If the topic was relevant after getting the gist we would look at the citations on wikipedia and track down authors. 3. Books we would obtain electronically. Papers would be tracked down on Arxiv. 4. Rinse and repeat if you didn't understand a topic that was cited in any of the other steps.