Google Alerts is a free service that allows you to get email notifications each time Google finds new relevant content based on a query or topic of your choice. Of course it can be used to get news on specific topics delivered in your inbox (news story, events, favourite sports teams, etc.), but let's face it, there are betters ways to get these type of updates by going directly to the source, or to specialized websites that aggregate that kind of content for you. So why would you want to use Google Alerts then?
Google Alerts is a great tool to monitor the use of specific words around the web. With the amount of content being published online daily, it is not impossible, for example, that the name of your company will be used in an article on a website, without you knowing about it. With Google Alerts, you can monitor the use of names you own or care about (your own name, the name of your business, the name of a group you belong to, etc.). Each time a specific name is mentioned on the Web, you will get an email update including a link to the source of the content.
