The Simple, Effective Way to Track What’s Said About You on the Internet

You don’t have to be an ego-freak to wonder if others are talking about you online. Egosurfing, i.e. the act of looking yourself up in search engines, is something most regular Internet users have done at least once. It’s very human to want to know if we’re affecting the world we live in.

So the old way to egosurf was to simply search for your name on Google whenever you remember to. Fun perhaps, but rather inefficient. There’s a better way.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a free service that lets you enter search terms (like your name or your website) that Google will monitor for you 24/7, across multiple types of online media. When someone mentions you Google will notify you immediately or at the end of the day, as desired.

And it’s customizable. You can look for yourself being mentioned in just news, blogs, video, web, or you can have it look through everything via the “comprehensive” option.

How to Get Started

1. Head over to Google Alerts
2. Put in the stuff you want to trigger on, e.g. your name (remember the quotes)
3. Set the media you want Google to search within
4. Set how often you want to be notified

That’s it. And here’s what an alert looks like.

Enjoy.:

Links

[ Google Alerts | google.com ]
[ Egosurfing | wikipedia.org ]