How to Create a Google Alert

Do you regularly scour the web for news and information on a specific topic? Perhaps you’re eager to find the latest news on diabetes research or sports scores. Or possibly you’d like to keep up on a developing news story. Don’t waste your time searching high and low on the Internet. Instead, set up a “Google Alert” to notify you of news and web updates. Alerts are easy to create and deliver the latest news on your choice of subject right to your inbox.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Access to the Internet
• Email account

1. Google Alerts page Go to: http://www.google.com/alerts.
2. Google Alerts box In the upper right hand corner, you’ll see a box entitled “Create a Google Alert.” You’ll then enter information on the top you wish to monitor.
3. Google Alerts For “Search terms” type the name or subject you’d like to search for. In this example, we typed in Packer score because we want to know the score of the Green Bay Packer game. With this example we will receive anything with “Packer” and “score” somewhere in the article or news item. If we want to get more specific, we can change the criteria. For example, we could indicate Green Bay Packer score rather than just Packer score. To drill it down even further, we can indicate “Packer score” (in quotations) to receive only information that has those two words written in that order somewhere in the document. Items placed in quotation marks help filter out other non-related information.
4. Google Alerts Next determine the “Type” of news or article you’d like to receive. The default of this category is “Comprehensive,” which searches all news, blogs, Internet (web), videos, and group discussions. Perhaps you’d like to receive all this information. If so, then indicate “Comprehensive.” However, if you only want to receive news items, indicate “News.” If you’d like to see the latest videos relating to your subject, indicate “Video,” and so forth.
5. Google Alerts Indicated the frequency of the information you’ll receive by filling out the box “How often.” Your choices are “Once a day,” “As-it-happens,” or “Once a week.” Depending on the use of the information, make your choice.
6. Google Alerts Finally, you’ll indicate the email address in “Email” for the alerts to be sent. Enter your email address and hit “Create Alert.” You’ll then receive a message on the screen saying your Google alert request has been created and a verification email has been sent to your inbox.
7. In order to start receiving your alerts, sign in to your inbox and look for a message from sender name: Google Alerts. The subject of the email will be “Click to confirm your Google Alert.”
8. Open the message, and click on the link that says “Verify this Google Alert request.” Clicking on this link will open a new window where you’ll see a message that says:
   
   Google Alert Verified
   Your Google Alert request has been verified.
   You will now start receiving Google Alerts via email on this topic.