What are they saying about you on the web?

One report says that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 29.7 billion web pages on the internet, with more coming and going everyday. Which of those pages have your, or your child’s name on them? What are people posting about you and those you love? Well, like all gossip, it is unknowable what is whispered privately, but there is a way to keep tabs on what is advertised out there for all the world to read, by using Google Alerts.

Go to www.Google.com/alerts and fill out a simple form that looks like this:

Choose to be alerted to anything that interests you. For example if your name is “Marcia Gay Hardin” and your son’s name is “Rocky” you can select to be alerted of the following terms: Marcia Gay, Marcia Hardin, Rocky Hardin, Hardin Family. You can add anything you want to your list (depending on how many alerts you want to receive) and the results will be emailed to you as you choose. Choices for alert frequency are: “Once a day”, Once a week” and “As it happens”.

You can also use this tool to be alerted of other things that interest you. You can follow updates on a celebrity, sports team or industry. Its like having an assistant that brings the information to you. It isn’t fool proof, but it beats spending your days running these searches yourself and it’s definitely fun reading the alerts.