Mention “Google” and most people think of searching the Internet. In fact, about 46% of all web searches are done with Google. In addition to search, Google offers a host of tools that will help streamline your online experience. One of those services is Google Alerts. Google Alerts are emails automatically sent to you when there are new Google results for specific search terms you want to track on an ongoing basis. Alerts results are currently offered from News, Web, Blogs, and Groups.

A “News” alert is an email aggregate of the latest news articles that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google News search. A “Web” alert contains the latest web pages that contain the search terms of your choice. A “Blogs” alert contains the latest blog posts and a “Groups” alert contain results from a Google Groups search. You can pick any one of these or a “Comprehensive” alert which contains the result of all of the above.

What kinds of topics make for interesting Google Alerts? Well, if it’s interesting to you, it’s a good subject for a Google Alert. You can set up an alert to monitor news items for your largest 25 clients, automatically keep current on a competitor, if you have a program targeted to a particular industry keep up to date on what’s happening in that industry. We use it to automatically track information about all of the major vendors.

To create customized alerts you simply visit the Google Alerts home page at [1] www.google.com/alerts, create a Google account (it’s free), enter your search, the type of alert you’d like (News, Web, etc.), how often you’d like to receive results, and your email address. When you’re done, click the “Create Alert” button. You will receive an confirmation email; clicking the link in this email will activate your Alert.