Monitor the Web for interesting new content by using Google Alerts

Isn't it good if we have some one stand next to us giving us all the details and data about the happenings all over the world, without us taking much effort to find what is going around? President Obama and Businessman Ratan Tata may have the high qualified Secretary to do this job. But what options do poor blogger like you and me have? Most of us are always interested on knowing what others are doing in this world, and what content got published in Internet which interests our tastes. No, I didn't mean we are peeping Toms. We just love to keep us updated. So, is there someone to help us?

Yes, we too do have an online assistant, who delivers the details and data to our hand by including the news what we want and excluding the details what we didn't ask for. This personal assistant is named as "Google Alert".

Google Alert is another product of Google, where you can create alerts on the topics you have interest and wish to get updates on. Once when you create an alert, you can receive the news and data in your email or in the form of feed.

OK. Stop. Relax. I think I was just too excited and talking (writing). Let me tell you in my usual simple ways, step by step guidance.

1. Let us say, you want to know about "Write and Earn Online" and love to get updates on this particular topic. Update here means, any latest content getting published somewhere in the corner of the Internet world. So, what you should do?

2. Login into Google Alert. You don't need a separate username and password. You can use the same that you use for your gmail account / blogger account / orkut account / adsense account / google analytics account / google webmaster tools account / picasaweb account (and a few more which I left)

http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en&gl=us

3. After login, you will see a screen saying "you don't have any alerts, try creating one". Of course, it is the first time and no alert is going to exist. Click on the "Try creating one" link.

Mythili Kannan_Google Alert

4. In the page which it opens, give the search term (as per our example, "Write and Earn Online").

Mythili Kannan_Alert Page of Google Alert

5. You can alter all the other options like type which default shows "Everything", where as you can set it as a specific one like news or blog or video which means, it will give you the corresponding data only. If you select blog, then you will get an alert whenever some one posts a topic related to Write and Earn Online in a blog.

6. If you want to know the changes of Internet immediately, then set the "How Often" option with "as-it-happens" or you can have it as "Once a day" or "Once a week".

7. You can control the volume of the details you want by selecting either the best results or the entire results of the search term.

8. You can get the alert either in the form of mail or in the form of feed by changing the corresponding option in that page.

9. Once after setting all the options, click on the "Create Alert" button. Done. Now you will be updated with the up-to-date knowledge and happenings of the Internet.

10. You can create as many alerts as you wish. You can have an alert for movie, one for your exam, one for earnings and so on. If you are bored with one particular alert, you have the option to delete it also. So, enjoy. Good luck.