How to set up a Google Alert
Setting up Google Alerts is easy and straightforward. From your computer or mobile device, head to the Google Alerts page and sign in with your Google account if you haven’t already. Instead of running a search every day to see if your favorite band is touring, for instance, or to see if any new rumors have been reported about the next iPhone, you can sit back while those stories get straight into your inbox. Type the search phrase or words you want to keep tabs on into the Create an alert about… box at the top of the screen. Note that you can use the standard search operators here, the same you would use when searching on Google—quotation marks around a phrase will match that exact phrase; a plus symbol in front makes sure your search will always include that word, and a minus symbol in front of a word tells Google to return matches that don’t include it. So, entering “dolphins -Miami” would get you results about the aquatic mammal but not the football team, for example. As you type, sample results will appear so you know if you need to further refine your search. When you’ve got an alert you’re happy with, choose Show Options. Here you can choose how often your alerts appear, and whether you want to see all the results to your query or only the most relevant. The latter option takes into account several factors, including the site it was published on, and how many times people click on it, among others. This option is much more helpful if you’re looking for something that returns a lot of hits. Some trial and error might be required to find the right balance between getting overwhelmed with results and not getting any at all, but you should quickly get a feel for how specific you need to make your search terms and how often you need to receive your various Google Alerts. When you’re happy, select Create Alert, and the results will start arriving in your inbox as frequently as you want (as they’re found, once a day, or once a week). Once you create your alerts, you can go to the Google Alerts page to modify or remove it. But this extends beyond musical artists—you can check for new seasons of your favorite show on Netflix or new books from your favorite authors, for example. Whatever type of cultural content you’re interested in, Google Alerts can serve it up.
3. Watch out for plagiarism
If you or the company you work for are in the writing business, Google Alerts is a fantastic way to scan the web for plagiarism. You can easily make sure no one else is passing off your work as their own, borrowing your regular turns of phrase, or trying to impersonate you—create alerts using your name, the titles of your articles, or some text from inside them to try to catch plagiarism (or discover who is quoting your content).
4. Check for company mentions
This one is work-related, but it’s still interesting—you can use Google Alerts to monitor what other people are saying about your company on the web, good or bad. Google Alerts is also useful for keeping up with industry news, and if your employer is a big name in your chosen industry, you should get plenty of news results too. If you don’t want to get notifications about online mentions of your company, you can key in your name instead (this is one of the alerts recommended by Google itself). It might seem a somewhat egotistical move, but at least you’ll know if other people are talking about you (and maybe you’ll come across some other people with your name, too).
5. Your personal details
Has your postal address or email address leaked out on the web? A simple Google Alert can tell you. Remember no one else can see these alerts, so your privacy is not at risk here. If you do find your email address is out there for everyone to see, you might have been the victim of a hack, or have been listed in an online directory—whatever the context, Google Alerts can help you take action quickly.
6. Keep tabs on people
Who are you interested in? Whether it’s your long-lost brother, a particular politician, a celebrity, or a sports star, Google Alerts will deliver news on this person right to your inbox. For the most popular searches you might have to reduce the frequency of your notifications and stick to the Only the best results option, but this also works well for searches that don’t return many results at all—if someone suddenly comes back into the public eye, you’ll know about it first.
