Don - Sometimes finding the right search is the key. For curiosity I just googled "Bagpipe reeds from yoghurt pots". The first result was this thread, so your principle of Google finding as close a match for your full search phrase seems to be valid. What it didn't get was the site you pointed us to. Plenty of bagpipe forum postings mention making bagpipe reeds from yoghurt pots, but do not actually describe the "how". By page 2 of the results they got onto Turkish cooking.
I think one of the strengths of the mudcat process is that when a question is asked, if three catters each try a google search, they will mentally process the question to form different search phrases, which will lead to a different assortment of web references. With luck, an answer may be in one or more of them, but perhaps not in the search used by the person asking the question.
The other part of the process is being able to separate the wheat from the chaff. It is easy for a person who already knows the answer, to glance through web sites and discard the ones which contain no useful information, especially if it a web site they already know. It is less easy for someone who is not sure what is relevant information and what are red herrings, or comments from people who do not know what they are talking about. Many web forums are full of "geek-speak" and technical jargon, which is all well if you are party to that specific jargon (I know mushrooms, but not electrical circuitry), but make replies incomprehensible to the rest of us. I have found the Mudcat computer geeks invaluable for explaining stuff I have needed to know to get a simple (or sometimes complex) job done.
The other problem with Google is that the web is full of people trying to sell you something. I have on occasion searched months before finding a combination that got me past the commercial sites to something I actually wanted to find. The other major fog is forums where nobody actually knows any more than I do about my query. Thankfully Mudcatters are so diverse in their real lives that almost any question will find at least one member who actually DOES know what they are talking about.

Quack!
GtD.