Using Google Alerts to monitor your mentions

For any charity or campaigning organisation, it’s vitally important to know when you’re being talked about, and when you’re getting media coverage. You may need to respond quickly, or let your network know you’re being quoted or mentioned.

Using Google Alerts can be an effective way of finding out reasonably quickly (usually within 1-2 hours) when names or phrases you’re interested in have appeared online. And unlike expensive media monitoring services, it’s free – you just need to have a Google account.

You can set up separate alerts for as many search terms as you like, and choose which email address to receive the notifications.

Search tips and tricks

Alerts can use the same AND OR Boolean operators as any other Google search, and other useful features such as excluding or including certain sites or domains.

Word1 word2 word3 = all of these words
“Word1 word2 word3” = complete phrase
Word1 OR word2 = any of these words
Word1 –word2 = word1 but NOT word2
Word1 * word2 = phrase where * is wildcard
Word1 site:bbc.co.uk/news = word1 from this site
Word1 -site:bbc.co.uk/news = word1 from anywhere except this site
Word1 site:.uk = word1 from this top level domain