Become a Google Search Master (here's how)

Opportunities for Google Search Experts

“Internet Researcher” is the generic job title, and it’s part of the new “gig economy.” Working from home - or wherever else you can find Internet access - a generalist Internet Researcher is needed by companies large and small. Such experts can answer questions like:

What is the market for widgets in a defined geographic area? What laws and regulations impact a business planned in a given city and state? How does weather influence sales of a given product?

Large corporations may employ Internet Researchers to answer a steady flow of questions full-time, paying $50,000 to $65,000 per year according to salaries reported at Glassdoor.com. Smaller firms engage freelance Internet Researchers for ad hoc assignments; freelancers tend to earn less, in the $38,000 to $45,000 range. You can find this type of gig on sites like Flexjobs, Upwork, and Fiverr.

Working from home (or the beach, if you can get Internet access), interesting problems to solve, and work/life balance are the top advantages that Internet Researchers see in their jobs. Income potential and career advancement prospects are two of the downsides.

Google offered its first advanced search courses back in 2013, and established a global community of Power Searchers who graduated from it. That alumni association acts as a cadre of ambassadors, first for the many uses of search, and secondly for Google Search.

The curriculum for Google Power Searchers is taught by Daniel Russell, a senior research scientist at Google. It consists of two segments. The first, “Power Searching With Google” is a series of videos grouped into three Units: Introduction, Interpreting Results and Advanced Techniques. Students progress as their own individual paces; there is no time frame for completing the course.

The second half, “Advanced Power Searching” consists of challenges in which a student learns by actually searching, interpreting results, and applying techniques to refine the results (literally, “re-searching”). The techniques include the less well known operators and search modifiers, Google properties aside from Search that may yield fruit, and strategies for homing in on the ideal information as fast and efficiently as possible. This course consists of video and text components. It is also self-paced.

The Power Searching classes may be found here.

One thing you'll learn in these courses is how to use Google search operators to help you refine your search results. For example, you can use the site: operator to limit results to a specific website. Here is an example search phrase:

inbound faxes site:askbobrankin.com -- will find pages that contain the phrase "inbound faxes" at askbobrankin.com only.

If you want to explore advanced Google search options on your own, see my related article Here's How to Strengthen Your Google Fu.

“Internet Researcher” sounds a lot cooler than “Uber driver,” is much more convenient, and probably pays better. What question might you pose to one? What are your favorite Google search tips? Your thoughts on this topic are welcome. Post your comment or question below...