I guess I had heard of Google Alerts before but I never paid much attention to it. Last week a read a post describing the concept and the benefits (I’m sorry but I don’t remember where) and I had no idea how beneficial using Google Alerts could be.
Easy as pie
In the back of my mind I was thinking that it would probably be a hassle setting it up and just dealing with yet another “thing”. I have to say though, it really was as easy as pie to set up. I went to my Google account, clicked on Google Alerts and entered the phrases that I wanted notification of if they showed up on the web. Done!
Why care?
That’s what I initially thought. I couldn’t imagine there would be too much of an advantage to knowing when certain phrases were detected. What I learned from the article I read is that using Google Alerts is a great way to keep tabs on any content theft. It is also a great way to get notified anytime Tumblemoose gets mentioned somewhere – the takeaway is to not just rely on pingbacks for this.
So far, so good
In the week or so that I’ve been using this, the results have been fascinating. Tumblemoose appears in places that I never would have thought. My other phrase I’m alerted to is “George Angus”. This one is not as wonderful in terms of the results because it separates “George” from “Angus”. Not so helpful. I get a lot of results about the cattle industry and the county of Angus in Scotland. Not that much of a hassle, to be honest.
The bottom line is that I highly recommend checking out Google Alerts. It may be helpful to your business and it’s kind of interesting to see what kinds of things the Google Alerts system sends.
Do you use Google Alerts? What have your experiences been like?
“Tumblemoose” is a great name to have for a Google Alert, since it’s so unique. I get a lot of false positives for my name. But your’e right – the results can be really interesting.
.-= Mudslide Mama´s last blog ..Children and Flying – Unaccompanied Minors =-.
Yeah, I don’t mind the falsies too much as they are only one or two a day…
George-
Set up your alert for “George Angus”, in quotes. That will return results that exactly match the phrase “George Angus” and not either or…should allievate your cattle problem.
I have quite a few google alerts set up and find them helpful as well. I not only search my name, but topics I’m interested in or may want to cover on my blog. I use it a lot to search for phrases, things like “small businesses face”…brings me articles like “small businesses face” uncertainty, or challenges, or, etc. You get the idea.
Have fun,
Matt
.-= Matt | Small Biz Bee´s last blog ..10 Business Lessons Learned =-.
It helps, too, when your name is unique. So far, the only occurrence of “Robert Hruzek” on the internet is yours truly! Like Tigger – I’m the only one!
Yeah, I don’t think Tracy O’Connor alert is doing me much good because I always ignore it! I will try Matt’s tip.
.-= Tracy´s last blog ..Money Money Money, MONEY! =-.
Hi George – They are super easy to set up and use. But now that I know you’ve set them up I’ll have to stop blatantly bad-mouthing you all over the Internet
I use Google alerts to find new topics to blog about–I get an update once a day with news from around the web on my keywords. But another use I didn’t see mentioned here is keeping track of incoming links. Simply set up an alert for link:http://tumblemoose.com and you’ll be notified every time someone links to you.
I do the ego thing and have an alert for my own name and domains (which has pointed me to a crap-ton of scraper blogs that are ripping off my content) but I also use it to keep track of my rankings for certain words. If I’m working on some SEO for a page, I’ll set up a new alert for:
site:mydomain.com keywords
Super handy. You can also use it to find new blogs to comment on in your niche.
.-= Cassie´s last blog ..Can You Write? Make Money In 5 Days! =-.
Matt,
Hehe. Thanks, man. I was fishing (kinda) for the George Angus thing – thanks for hooking me up.
Mine eyes have been opened!
George
Robert,
We all know it’s not just your name that’s unique. It’s YOU, Bubba. And that’s awesome.
Cheers
George
Tracy,
Yeah, Matt’s a good one for tips. Give it a shot. I’d be WAY curious to see who’s spreading your name. Hehe.
George
Kim,
I’m lol over here. So YOU’RE the one! Umm, I take that back. There HAS to be more than one…
Cheers
George
Hi Cindy,
Yay! That’s a great idea. I’ll head over and set that one up too.
Thanks!
George
Cassie,
Great suggestions. I’ll put some thought into some new alerts because I ALWAYS need new ideas.
Right on
George
Hi George. My first time here and at last . . . I figured out the meaning behind “Tumblemoose!” Well, I don’t really have that problem here in Las Vegas, Nevada. hehe
Google Alerts are a great thing. I of course have it set up for my name as well (as most people do), but as the blog editor and part owner of our company I also keep track of what people are talking about for our company and target customers.
So I keep alerts on things like “wordpress hosting”, “start a blog”, and stuff like that. Works pretty well. I find a lot of people asking questions in our industry and I aim to answer them.
Thanks for the warm welcome over at Barbara’s blog by the way.
.-= John Hoff – WpBlogHost´s last blog ..Where’s John Been? =-.
John!
Right on. Thanks for stopping by. Of course it’s great to see you here. I appreciate the comments about Google Alerts, I’m really learning a great deal about how to use them.
And by the way, isn’t Barbara just the greatest? She did a surprise showcase of Tumblemoose a while back and I was just blown away.
Headed over to see your latest, hope to see you again soon.
Cheers!
George
I’ve used Google Alerts for quite a while now. My writing and blogging friends started using it so I thought I’d try it out. Like you, I discovered it’s quite useful! What’s really strange, though, is that I get a LOT of results with Michelle Obama — especially during the election.(I guess because, like you said, it separates the first and last name.) LOL
Michele
.-= Michele´s last blog ..Grammar Girl Contest Winners =-.
I’ve been using Google Alerts for years, first to track where my article marketing articles were published, then to look for my name and website, and finally to find mentions of keywords to help with ideas for blog posts and tweets. It’s a really simple and useful tool.
.-= Sharon Hurley Hall´s last blog ..How To Put Your Best Foot Forward As A Writer =-.