Google email alerts is an awesome tool. It surfs the web for keywords of your choice, and emails you any occurrences of your keyword search as it’s posted, and comes live on the internet.
When do I use it?
Well, I do keyword searches for my own name, or for “Tobin Electronics” to hear when people are talking about us or me.
How else do I use it?
Craigslist! Craigslist, as I’m sure you know, is a massive classifieds advertisement service where you can buy or sell virtually anything you want. One can utilize the google email alerts to search craigslist and email you if your keyword search shows up. Very cool, I know.
How do I do this?
It’s a fairly simple process.
- Head to www.google.com/alerts where you can sign in to avoid having to confirm the alert via email.
- Fill in your search query as: “digital camera” site:http://vancouver.craigslist.org/ (tip: you can enter the search query exactly as shown into google and make sure it actually returns a value)
- Fill in the rest of the fields as you see fit
After you’ve done this, you should be able to “manage alerts” for that specific email. I suspect this will only work if you have a Google email address, but I haven’t tested this. Apparently it can work for over 1000 alerts (per email).
Hope this helps!
Special thanks to Dzine Pod for this helpful tip.