Among the many useful free tools that Google provides is the Google Alert tool. As the name suggests, you use it to obtain "alerts" when a specific topic, name or search term appears somewhere in the news, on the web, or in discussion groups. This is invaluable for research or just watching a particular activity.

Say for example I was a medical practitioner doing research about high blood pressure and wanted alerts when anything about "high blood pressure" appeared in the news (this might eg, relate to someone else's research). Rather than searching the web myself, I can let Google do it for me and send me an email with relevant links.

First I would load the standard Google.com screen and select the link News from the horizontal menu. Then I'd look down the left side of the News page and select Google Alerts. When the Google Alerts (Beta) page appears, there is a form on the right side that asks for: Search terms, Type (ie, news, news and web, web or groups), How often you want the alert eg, when it happens, daily or weekly and your Email address.

When you click the Create Alert button after making your selections, Google sends a confirmation email to your email address with which you have to confirm your interest by clicking on a link therein (in the usual double opt-in method). Then, all you do is sit back and wait for email to arrive with information about the topic of interest.

I have used this to track news topics in which I've been interested, items about specific celebrities, or information about specific topics of interest.

If you need up-to-date information as it happens, what better way to get it than to let the world's largest search engine find it for you and deliver it right to your desktop?

Why not try Google Tools now to keep track of a topic in which you are interested? You can cancel your subscription at any time.