Did you know that Google Alerts is a wonderful tool to stay ahead of others and get informed first? So much that, you get to know the news before the newspapers or the TV news channels. Unbelievable it may sound, but it's true. Let's take a deeper look into the world of Google alerts and how you can use them to our advantage.

So what are Google alerts meant for?

Google alerts are automated email messages sent from Google to anyone who has registered for it, for a particular term or subject, informing them of a new google result on that term or subject.

For example If you register at Google alerts requesting them to send you email messages about "Kentucky chicken", every time Google finds a page on the internet about "Kentucky chicken", Google sends you an email with the website address and the information. Now, these are likely to be new web pages appearing on the web, like a news alert or a new story, whatever it is, whenever there is a mention of the keyword you suggested, you get an email.

Before we go any further, I'd recommend you go to Google Alerts and have fun tweaking around, and then come back so that you have an idea on what's up ahead.

More of a Visual Person - Watch This Tutorial

Some people learn better (myself) by seeing a tutorial.  I have put together this article into a simple video for those who are left brained:

Google Local Video Tutorial

Where do I start?

Starting to set up a Google alert is very easy.

Step 1

Go to the Google Alerts homepage here (www.google.com/alerts) and type in your search term in the box in the right hand side that says "Create a Google Alert".



Step 2

After entering the search term, select the "Type of alert" form the second option.



There are currently six types of alerts

• A 'News' alert is an email aggregate of the latest news articles that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google News search.
   
• A 'Web' alert is an email aggregate of the latest web pages that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top twenty results of your Google Web search.

• A 'Blogs' alert is an email aggregate of the latest blog posts that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google Blog search.
   
• A 'Comprehensive' alert is an aggregate of the latest results from multiple sources (News, Web and Blogs) into a single email to provide maximum coverage on the topic of your choice.
   
• A 'Video' alert is an email aggregate of the latest videos that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google Video search.
   
• A 'Groups' alert is an email aggregate of new posts that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top fifty results of your Google Groups search.

Step 3

Now, select when and how frequently you want Google to check for results on the selected keyword and email them to you. There are three options available.

• Once a day In this option, Google checks for news results on the selected keywords at a specific time of the day, and email them to you once a day.
   
• As it happens - As obvious, Google will check and email the results as and when they are spotted. This could result in more frequent alert emails sent to your inbox depending on how popular the keyword is. For example, if the keyword you selected is "Obama", you are likely to get lot of alert emails everyday as many websites are writing about it.
   
• Once a week If you set this option, no matter the results appear daily or not, you will get email updates delivered once every week.

Here is how a Google Alert will look in your inbox:



Once an alert is set up, you will be taken to the "Alerts Manage" page where you can see your existing alert and manage them by editing/adding or even deleting them.



You'll see a sample alerts management page. To the left, listed are the terms for which the alert is setup, to the right the type of alert and how often they are set.

Clicking on the "edit" button to the right will give you the option to

• Edit the alert keyword
   
• Change the alert type
   
• Change how often you receive alerts
  

General uses of Google alerts

Google alerts can be used for tracking news stories, see how popular a particular term is, finding movie reviews, track software release updates, tracking news announcements on a particular topic, or just about anything. For example, when you set an alert for "Kentucky chicken", you'll receive an alert email every time there is a mention of the word in any site appearing in the Google search results.