Searching the Web

Volume 32, Number 4, April 2005

by Holly Gunn

with free google alert services

Alert services are a great way of keeping abreast of topics that interest you. Rather than searching the Web regularly to find new content about your areas of interest, an alert service keeps you informed by sending you notices when new material is added to the Web that matches your registered search criteria. Alert services are examples of push technology that delivers or pushes information on your desktop instead of your going to search for it. If you want to be on top of the Web literature about a specific topic, an alert service is your way of doing this. Alert services are also useful for following news stories on a particular topic or for monitoring changes to a particular web site in which you have an interest. Alert services are especially helpful for teacher-librarians who want to stay current with developments in their profession and in the field of education.

You can find two free Google alert services on the Web. One is operated by Google; the other is maintained by Indigo Stream Technologies.

Before Google started its own alert service, Indigo Steam Technologies has been operating GoogleAlert (http://googlealert.com/index.php) using Google's own applied programming interface or programming routines (APIs) that Google makes available publicly for programmers. This service, operating since early 2003, has been applauded by reviewers from Wired, BBC News, and PC World and technology columnists from various newspapers (http://googlealert.com/press.php). GoogleAlert from Indigo Stream Technologies has excellent advanced search capabilities that allow users to customize searches by language, file type, parts of a page (e.g. title, body) phrase, country of origin, etc. (See figure 1.)

Figure 1

Google's own alert service, Google Alerts (http://www.google.ca/alerts), is the new kid on the block. This service still in Beta (November, 2004) is a graduate of Google Labs, where Google experiments openly with many of its innovative search ideas. Google alerts can be established for the Web, Google News, or both. The Google Alerts' FAQ site (http://www.google.ca/alerts/faq.html?hl=en) answers many questions about the service, such as frequency of alerts, managing alerts, refining alerts, stopping alerts, etc. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2

When you register with either of these Google alert services, you are registering the search criteria with which you want to be updated. You will then receive regular emails from the alert service, notifying you when new content that has been added to the Web matches your search criteria. Although you receive email updates automatically, you can log on to your alert service anytime to run or edit your search terms. When you wish to discontinue the alert service, you can log on to the alert site and terminate the alerts.

Whichever Google alert service you choose to use, you will find that the push technology behind the service will keep you better informed about the people and the events in your areas of interest. Alerts are a powerful tool in your searcher's toolkit. They deliver information tailored to your interests, and they deliver it regularly.

REFERENCES

Calishain, T. (2004). "Google everywhere". PC Magazine. Retrieved November 20, 2004, from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1684581,00.asp

Gunther, K. (2004). "What is push technology?" Darwin. Retrieved November 29, 2004, from http://www.darwinmag.com/learn/curve/column.html?ArticleID=43

Kleinschmidt, C. (2003). "Google Alert shows the power of Google's Web API Program." Traffick. Retrieved November 29, 2004, from http://www.traffick.com/article.asp?aID=150

Sher, J. (2004). "Staying alert with Google." JournalismNet. Retrieved November 20, 2004, from http://www.journalismnet.com/tips/alerts.htm

Sherman, C. (2004). "Google Alert automatically tracks your favorite topics." SearchEngineWatch. Retrieved November 29, 2004, from http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3301451