Google Alerts - Staying Alert with Google
By Dawn Cullo
Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) is a free service offered by Google that will notify you via email about the latest web and news pages of your choosing. This service will help track new pages for any topic such as real estate trends, new marketing strategies and anything else pertaining to your business. You no longer have to perform the same searches over and over again. When you use Google Alert you will be notified via email of Web sites that interest you and your business.
Some ideas for items that you can track are:
- learn where you or your company is cited or quoted
- keeping current on a competitor or industry
- monitoring a developing news story
- discover new websites on a certain topic
- keep tabs on your favorite sports teams
- tracking medical advances
There are four different categories of alerts: "News", "Web", "News & Web", and "Groups".
- News alerts inform you if new articles make it into the top ten results for a Google News search.
- Web alerts inform you if a new web page appears in the top twenty results for a Google Web search.
- News & Web alerts inform you when a new article related to your search terms make it into the top ten results for a Google News search or the top twenty results for a Google Web search.
- Group alerts inform you if a new post makes it into the top fifty results of a Google Groups search.
There are three options are available for the frequency in which Google checks for new results: "once a day", "once a week", or "as it happens".
Got Google Alerts, Now What?
Here are some Ideas for what to do with your new found information.
- If your industry is cited in a news article or press release you can contact the reporter who wrote the article and offer more information about your company or an alternative point of view.
- You can also monitor an industry competitor and receive news alerts about what they are developing or contact the author and offer information about your company for a follow-up story or to be a resource in the future.
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