I'm going to answer this from a technical point of view. I find search is best done by using precedence.
For example say my question is: "how to use rails with devise and omniauth", I break it down to the group in which I think nets the most results should be the first keyword and so on.
The top results are normally similar. With exception to the "how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth" search, which is rather different.
From my standpoint the "rails+devise+omniauth" yields the best results as the source of truth is closer to the github documentation "OmniAuth: Overview · plataformatec/devise Wiki · GitHub", over third party information "#235 Devise and OmniAuth (revised) - RailsCasts".
Using "how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth" gets rather off topic after the 3 or so results.
Another tactic I use is searching like a command line. For instance: "wiki list breaking bad", or "imdb iron man". This don't work with smaller properties, so "site:example.com" is another awesome tool.
Quotes do not require the plus sign as a placeholder for space, unless I'm missing something.
I often use quotes to search for specific Linux error messages with great success; any hit that isn't a direct match gets shafted.
For example say my question is: "how to use rails with devise and omniauth", I break it down to the group in which I think nets the most results should be the first keyword and so on.
1. rails 2. devise 3. omniauth
rails+devise+omniauth: https://www.google.com/search?q=rails+devise+omniauth
rails+omniauth+devise: https://www.google.com/search?q=rails+omniauth+devise
omniauth+devise+rails: https://www.google.com/search?q=omniauth+devise+rails
how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth: https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+use+rails+with+devise...
The top results are normally similar. With exception to the "how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth" search, which is rather different.
From my standpoint the "rails+devise+omniauth" yields the best results as the source of truth is closer to the github documentation "OmniAuth: Overview · plataformatec/devise Wiki · GitHub", over third party information "#235 Devise and OmniAuth (revised) - RailsCasts".
Using "how+to+use+rails+with+devise+and+omniauth" gets rather off topic after the 3 or so results.
Another tactic I use is searching like a command line. For instance: "wiki list breaking bad", or "imdb iron man". This don't work with smaller properties, so "site:example.com" is another awesome tool.
Just my two cents.