Get Latest Results with Google Alerts
Google Notifies Users When New Sites About Their Topics Appear
Oct 14, 2009
When a news story breaks, a celebrity is signed to the starring role in a book-to-movie, or celebrity begins a 25 city tour; nearly everyone will run to Google to get the latest. If the story persists for several days it would be great if there were some way to track information on the topic regularly without manually running out to Google and entering the same keywords every day. That’s what Google Alerts are all about.
What is Google Alerts?
According to Google’s FAQ, “Google Alerts are emails automatically sent… when there are new Google results for… search terms.”
A user also has the option to have alerts sent to his feedreader of choice. What actually gets sent are any changes to the top 10-50 hits on a particular keyword search. The level (number) of citations checked depends on what type of Google Alerts is chosen.
What Qualifies as an Acceptable Google Alerts Topic?
Anything that gets hits with a standard Google search will work as a search with Google Alerts. Here are a few examples of Google Alerts searches.
- Health Care Legislation
- Marvel Avengers movie (scheduled for release in 2012)
- General Widgets Corporation
- An individual’s alma mater
- A person’s hobby (stamp collecting, fishing, martial arts, etc.)
What are the Different Types of Alerts?
- Google Alerts currently has six Alerts definitions. Each has a different number of hits made available to the user. The list below defines each type and the quantity of citations checked.
- Blogs Alert: Contains the latest blog posts with the desired search terms. (Top 10 results)
- Comprehensive Alert: Uses the latest results from multiple sources (Blogs, News and Web) with desired search terms (Top: Not provided by Google)
- Groups Alert: New posts with chosen search term from Google Groups search (Top 50 results)
- News Alert: Uses Google News to find latest news stories on topic of choice. (Top 10 results)
- Video Alert: Finds latest videos containing search term in Google Video search (Top 10 results)
- Web Alert: Latest web pages containing the search term using Google Web search (Top 20 results)
Google does not state its reasons for the number of results considered in each of the six types of searches.
Setting Up a Google Alerts Search
For the best results from Google Alerts there are several preliminary steps that should be followed. These steps are not mandatory but should result in more successful alerts.
- Determine the topic and keyword/s to be used
- Determine what type of Google Alerts are desired (Blogs, Comprehensive, etc.)
- Try the keywords in an appropriate Google search (Google News, Google Video, Google Blogs)until the desired results are obtained
After this preliminary work it’s time to set up Google Alerts.
Requesting Google Alerts
The procedure for setting up Google Alerts is relatively simple. After proper preparation (see above) follow these steps.
- Click the “more” choice on any Google menu bar.
- Click “even more” on the drop down menu.
- Click on “Alerts” at the top of the left-hand column. This will bring up the Create a Google Alert form. (NOTE: If Google Alerts is used frequently place it in Favorites list and avoid going through the first two steps)
- Type the desired search terms.
- Choose the Type of alert (News, Blogs, Web, etc.).
- Choose how often to be notified (as-it-happens, daily, weekly)
- Enter the email address to receive the aggregate or click on Feed.
- Click on the Create Alert button.
- A screen report will be displayed showing all of the current Google Alerts of the user.
Google’s Not Perfect
How Google chooses the top 10, 20 or 50 is pretty much a mystery to most. So the results a person receives from Google Alerts may indeed point to a site that has moved up the list for a particular set of keywords but contains a limited amount of new information.
For example, a person has set up a Google Alert to notify her of new posts concerning health care legislation. Google sends an email with two new sites posted in the top ten. One of those sites is exactly the kind of thing she is looking for but the other just has the keyword phrase “health care legislation” in a list of current political priorities and concerns of members of Congress seeking reelection in 2010.
No other mention on the topic is made. It must be understood Google Alerts is not a magic bullet that will eliminate all poor hits. It won’t. The better the preparation, the better the final outcome will be.
Google Alerts will help users track changes to web postings in the upper levels of Google searches. It takes a little forethought but once set up, it keeps the user apprised of most significant new and relevant information on the World Wide Web.
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