Is there an easy way for me to monitor the news for certain topics? How can I alert myself whenever that topic comes up, without spending a lot of time online?
Google has a product called Google Alerts that serves this exact purpose. With Google Alerts, you create a list of keywords, and notify yourself each time one comes up online. To create your own Google Alerts keyword list, visit google.com/alerts. You’ll need to complete the Google Alerts form for each topic you wish to be notified of.
Fig. 1 - The setup form for a Google Alert.
To set up each of your Google Alerts, complete each field in the form.
- Search terms - the keywords you wish to monitor. Enter something like “microsoft”, or “of zen and computing”. You can even monitor your own name!
- Type - Choose what area you’d like to monitor for your keywords.
- News - receive notification when your keyword(s) appear in various news outlets.
- Blogs - monitor blogs for your keyword(s). Blogs are frequently updated sites that organize content into “posts”, listed in reverse chronological order. When someone includes your keyword(s) in a new blog post, you’ll be notified.
- Web - have Google let you know when it’s spiders come across a web page containing your keyword(s).
- Groups - get notified when newsgroup discussions mention your keyword(s).
- Comprehensive - monitor all of the above.
- How often - do you want to receive a notification whenever your keywords are found, or would you like to receive a digest once a week/day.
- E-mail - Google sends alerts to your e-mail address. Enter it here.
Once you complete the Google Alerts form, you’ll be taken to their management page. This page lists all of your Google Alerts, and your new alert should be among the them. Now, whenever Google discovers mention of your topics on the web, they’ll send you an e-mail.
