Most of us think we’re great Googlers. And it’s a testament to Google’s strength as a mostly reliable search engine that we do usually find what we’re looking for with a few simple keywords. But beyond the quick factual search, things can get tricky, and as a number of studies have shown, most of us miss good information on the open web due to our limited search skills (and here it’s worth noting that less than 10% of online information is actually available on the open web via search engines; the other 90% resides on the deep or invisible web).

There are a number of ways to improve your search skills. While Google appears simple and intuitive on the surface, its power can best be harnessed with some training, and Google provides a number of online training guides to help improve the search skills of its users. Two self-paced courses have been developed for power searching and advanced power searching, and this course, geared to students and their teachers, provides lesson plans and trivia challenges. Also available are webinars that guide the user through a variety of tools and techniques to find higher quality sources more easily.

But no matter how advanced a Googler you become, you’ll be missing a lot of good information if you rely solely on Google. Other search engines such as Bing and DuckDuckGo index the web differently and have different ways of prioritizing results. (See this slide deck from Karen Blakeman of RBA Information Services for some alternatives to Google.) And as mentioned before, only a small fraction of online information is indexed through search engines; countless specialized databases and indexes provide high-quality material that won’t appear in search engine results.

By the way, Google has come up with a fun way to put your Google search skills to the test. A Google a Day is a daily puzzle that can be solved by using clever search skills on Google.