Good news! As best I can tell, the poor performance of Google Alerts that has plagued Google's monitoring service for months finally seems over. I asked, but Google won't confirm that it's made any changes. Still, it's pretty clear to me that something has happened for the better. I noticed an improvement that began on April 1 -- and no April Fool's, that's really when things began getting better. I've been watching my alerts closely each day, and the trend has continued. Google Alerts is again finding new content that I'd expect it to find, content that it used to uncover until it we [...]

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Google Public Alerts has broadened its service through a new partnership with Nixle, a company that contracts with public safety agencies to send alerts via cellphones and social media networks. Police, fire, and emergency management agency alerts will now appear when a Google search or a Google Maps search is performed in an area with an active emergency alert in effect. "Google Public Alerts provides people with information about how to respond in emergency situations," said Jonathan Betz, engineering manager for Google Crisis Response. "Nixle enables local response agencies to get tha [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Google: Alerts | Search Engines: Disasters | Top News

With Google Alerts coming under fire as being broken, an impressive new service has stepped up to appeal to those seeking an alternative: Talkwalker. Luxembourg-based Talkwalker is a social media monitoring company that has now released its own keyword-based alerts resource. The free service utilizes Google's Web, news, and blog databases and delivers alerts by email or RSS. So, are Talkwalker Alerts the Google Alerts replacement many are looking for? I spent a few hours running several alerts and at this point I'm both optimistic and even impressed. A few initial impressi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features: Analysis | Google: Alerts

Last month, I wrote my Dear Google Alerts: Why Aren’t You Working? story. Soon after, Google told me things were improved. That's not been the case for me; and now, another open letter about how poorly the service is working has appeared. The latest letter is from The Financial Brand, a website for financial marketers. It writes, in part: The Financial Brand has frequently encouraged bank and credit union marketing executives around the world to use Google Alerts. This advice is now fully retracted.Google Alerts was once a very important and efficient tool to monitor mentions of you [...]

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One of Google's oldest features is Google Alerts, where you can enter keywords you want to monitor and get an email report each day about any new search results that match those terms. It was awesome; but for several weeks, it's become nearly useless. My long-standing settings have been for Google to check each day against "Everything" and bring back any new listings with my name in them. That has meant it routinely finds blog posts, webpages and news articles with references. Here's a typical example from the end of November: Usually, there are a few new web mentions, occasionall [...]

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Google has started showing active AMBER Alerts for missing U.S. children above its search results on both regular Google Search and on Google Maps. And that includes both desktop and mobile searches. Here's what one that's currently showing up on a search for "amber alerts boston" looks like. Here's Google's explanation of what might prompt the AMBER Alert to appear: If you're using Google Search or Maps on desktop and mobile you'll see an AMBER Alert if you search for related information in a particular location where a child has recently been abducted and an alert was issued. Yo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Alerts | Google: Web Search

The Google Blog announced a few new features for Google search this week. First, they confirmed the realtime counter we reported earlier last week. Second, local search suggestions are now for cities around the world, not just in the US. Finally, Google Alerts for news based alerts is now improved. In April 2010, Google made Google Suggest -- which is now is calling "Autocomplete" -- locally relevant, so that if you are in a specific city or metropolitan area, Google will tailor the autocompletions based on that area. Google said they have extended the "hyper-local predictions" around [...]

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Google announced a few new small features added recently. (1) Google Translate added Latin as a new language. Google said, "although considered a "dead language" by many, Latin is still studied by hundreds of thousands of students worldwide and is the predecessor to many modern tongues." I am sure those who study in this language welcome it to Google Translate. (2) Google has updated their flu shot location search in collaboration with the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services (HHS). The flu season is right around the corner and it might pay for you to get your shot early, i [...]

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It seems like the Google Alerts team is up to some new tricks. A couple weeks ago, Google tweaked the quality algorithm of Google Alerts and, although I missed it then TechCrunch noticed, they dropped the web alerts option. In regards to the quality change, Googler Marcel said: Regarding the volume of alerts, we've been tweaking Alerts from a quality point of view to try and avoid sending things that people aren't interested in. If you want more results, change the "Email length" setting for your alerts from "up to 20 results" to "up to 50 results" - you'll get more results with looser [...]

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How did singer Katy Perry discover that Russell Brand was going to propose to her? Turns out that Perry googles herself on a regular basis and found out Brand had purchased a ring. Perry explained to reporters as she walked down the red carpet to the Grammys this week that she uses Google Alerts to track news about herself: Unfortunately, I still Google myself sometimes. I saw it on Google alerts. I'm going to be honest! That's from Monsters & Critics, and many other publications including the New York Daily News have the same quote. [...]

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Can a search engine accurately diagnose health problems? Can it someday replace your doctor? Questions like this aren't new, but the discussion has gotten a bit louder in recent weeks. Just a couple weeks ago, I reported on a Microsoft investigation of cyberchondria, when inaccurate medical information online makes actual health problems worse. On Friday, Dilbert cartoon creator Scott Adams shared a different point of view, telling blog readers how Google helped him find treatment for a speech defect known as Spasmodic Dysphonia. More specifically, Adams was using Google Alerts to get i [...]

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As expected, Google has added an RSS feed for web search results to the Google Alerts service. As seen in the screenshot above, when creating a new alert, you can now choose to get the alert via email or RSS feed. RSS feed alerts are only available to logged-in Google account holders. As we reported earlier this month, Google is the last major search engine to offer its web search results via RSS. This is a good addition, but I have to agree with Google Operating System today: "The new feature from Google Alerts is useful, but Google should've provided an option to subscribe to feeds [...]

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Google has confirmed for Search Engine Land that they'll soon start offering RSS feeds for web search results. When it happens, the RSS feeds will be an extension of Google Alerts, which currently only allow notification by email. The addition of RSS alerts was first picked up by Amit Agarwal, who found it mentioned in an October 1st Wall Street Journal article where author Katherine Boehret wrote, "In about a month, Google will begin delivering these alerts to users via feeds, as well as emails." In an email today, a Google spokesperson told us: "While I can't be more specific about an [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Alerts | Google: Web Search | Top News