The Benefits of Creating Google Alerts and How to Create Them

For years I have recommended that teachers and students create Google Alerts to monitor their digital footprints. Google Alerts can notify you of new instances of your name being published online. Monitoring digital footprints isn’t the only use for Google Alerts. Google Alerts can also be useful in receiving a notification whenever a new article is published about a topic that you or your students are researching. Here’s an overview of what Google Alerts are and how to use them.

What Are Google Alerts?

Google Alerts is a free Google product that notifies you when a new mention of term or phrase that you specify appears on the web. You can set as many alerts as you like within your Google account. I recommend creating alerts for a variety of spellings and iterations of search terms.
Once you’ve established an alert, you can choose to have Google send you an email anytime your chosen terms appear online. This video will show you how to create Google Alerts.

Google Scholar Alerts

Just as you can do for Google.com searches, you can create Google Scholar alerts. Google Scholar alerts notify students when new materials related to their search queries appear on Google Scholar. Watch this video to learn how to create Google Scholar alerts.