I am always on the lookout for ways to save time (even make time out of thin air), and I recently discovered the benefits of using Google Alerts to receive notifications about new content published online. You can use Google Alerts to receive e-mails about new content that contains specific keywords you want to research, monitor, track or follow on an ongoing basis. Google Alerts searches the web for your keywords and notifies you when it finds content in news articles, blog posts, website updates, video content, Google Groups, etc.
If you want to keep all that extra email out of your inbox, you can also set Google Alerts to send notifications via a RSS feed to your chosen feedreader or the iGoogle platform. You can also choose how often you want to be notified: immediately, once a day, or once a week.
Since Google Alerts will only send links to content that matches your chosen keywords EXACTLY, it’s important to use correct spelling and grammar. (Unless, of course, your goal is to track variations in a keyword, with incorrect or different spelling as another variant.)
In Google’s own words, you can use Google Alerts for:
- monitoring a developing news story
- keeping current on a competitor or industry
- tracking medical advances
- getting the latest on a celebrity or sports team
- watching for new videos that match a specific topic
Have a lot of Google Alerts? You can manage them through your Google account under the “Manage My Alerts” page.
Want to try it out? Create your own Google Alert here and get Google to do your research for you!
Do you use Google Alerts already? What kinds of information do you track?
