Google Wants To Teach You To Be A Power Searcher

Searching Google can be a bit of an art form. At times simply typing in your keywords or search terms will work, and work well, but other times you need to dig a bit deeper. That is where power searching comes in, using the little know tips, tricks and tactics to narrow your search to give you the best results possible.

Most Google users are familiar with some of the day to day shortcuts for Google Search, like using the search box as a calculator or finding local movie showtimes by typing [movies] and your zip code. But there are literally dozens more tricks you can use to find exactly what you’re looking for, when you most need it.

To help the every day Googler, Google has announced a new program called Power Searching with Google, a free, online, community-based course showcasing these techniques and how you can use them to solve everyday problems. Registration is now open and anyone is free to join. The courses are aimed at empowering you to find what you need faster, no matter how you currently use search.

Examples of things covered are going to be: Google translator, which allows you to read pages written in several foreign languages. Using Google Image search to identify the location of a pictures. Identifying books through Google Books.

Lessons will be released daily starting on July 10, 2012, and you can take them according to your own schedule during a two-week window, alongside a worldwide community. The lessons include interactive activities to practice new skills, and many opportunities to connect with others using Google tools such as Google Groups, Moderator and Google+, including Hangouts on Air, where world-renowned search experts will answer your questions on how search works. Googlers will also be on hand during the course period to help and answer your questions in case you get stuck. 

Registration is open from June 26, 2012 to July 16, 2012. We recommend that you register before the first class is released on July 10, 2012! You can click here to register.

For those of you that don't want to sit through an hour long course, or miss out on registering, you can also find more search tips on Google's Inside Search page. If you want a handy cheat sheet of all the advanced search operators you can use for power searching checkout GoogleGuide.com, for you Google Calculator users there is also a calculator cheat sheet.