Why should I set up Google Alerts? What are the benefits?
What are Google Alerts?
Google Alerts allow you to define specific words or terms and then alert you whenever Google encounters those words or terms while crawling the web.
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| Why should I set up Google Alerts? What are the benefits? |
Once Google finds your predefined words or terms, it will tell you where it found them so you can check them.
Not only is this useful as a blogger trying to keep track of your reputation and see if your content is reproduced without your consent, it is also a monitoring tool for yourself.
Google Alerts, a monitoring tool for yourself? ..
Let me explain – With the increase in identity theft in today’s society, the use of Google Alerts can make it easy for you to keep an eye on “you” on the web. Maybe enter your social security number, car license plate, or any other personal information you feel is relevant and get alerts whenever they are mentioned online.
Here are some of the benefits of Google Alerts for bloggers:
Watch for a new one in development.
Find when other people link to your blog or website.
Spy on your competition.
Discover new blogs or websites in your niche.
Just to point out: Google Alerts do not include searches on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.
But both of these tools do: Twilert.com offers a free service similar to Google Alerts for search terms on Twitter, while HyperAlerts.no provides a similar service for terms on Facebook.
Configure Google Alerts
Setting up Google Alerts is pretty straightforward. You can create up to 1000 alerts with a variety of search options which include:
Result type: everything, news, blogs, discussions, videos and books.
How often: once a day, once a week, as you go.
How much: only the best results, all the results.
Deliver to: email or feed.
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| Why should I set up Google Alerts? What are the benefits? |
Configure Google Alerts
Why not send Google alerts to your RSS reader
The standard option for Google alerts is to send the alerts to your email client, the best option for me that works the best is to opt to have the alerts sent to my RSS reader, I like to keep everything on the go. same place in order to have Google alerts with my news suits me perfectly. I don’t want to try to filter my actual email from Google Alerts, I’m getting enough mail as is!