Managing Alerts

When you receive Google Alerts in e-mail you are given the option of deleting the alert directly from the e-mail message by clicking the link provided in the e-mail. Without a Google Account, the only way to manage alerts is to delete them and create new ones.

A more efficient way of managing your Google Alerts is to sign into your Google Account and choose the Manage link next to the Alerts link found in the My Services section of your Google Account home page.

The Google Alert Manage your Alerts page is divided into two sections: Create a Google Alert and Your Google Alerts. In these two sections you can choose to create new alerts of any type, edit them, and delete them. Remember that deleting an alert cancels the alert, and you no longer receive alerts from deleted alerts.

Manage alerts you’ve created previously in the Your Google Alerts section. The alerts are displayed in a table with the following three columns:

• Search terms: Contains which keywords and phrases you used to create the Google Alert

• Type: Specifies the source of the information used to trigger the alert

• How often: Specifies the frequency with which you receive the alert

To the left of the alert information are two links: one to edit the alert and the other link to delete the alert.

You can change your alerts by clicking the edit link. After clicking this link the three columns (Search terms, Type, and How often) change so that they can be edited. You can add, delete, or change the Search terms, and select a different type and change how often you receive alerts. Figure 10.3 shows you an alert in edit mode.

Figure 10.3: You can edit one alert at a time.

When you finish editing the alert, click Save. To leave it unchanged click Cancel.

Tip 

By default, you receive all Google Alerts in HTML form. You can switch to text e-mail by clicking the switch to text emails link located in the upper-right side of the page. There is no way to change an individual alert from HTML to text e-mail. You must change all your alerts from one type to the other.