Did you know that Google will kindly email you whenever they come across your site? Or if they come across another site that links to your site? Yes, they will, but only if you ask them to do so. You can create Google Alerts to have emails sent for any web site you request. This can be a great way to see how quickly, and how often, Google indexes your site. It’s also a great way to see who is linking to your site without your looking for it.

Of course, you will only be notified of what Google finds. That means there may be links to your site that you don’t know about simply because Google hasn’t indexed them yet.

My instructions to create Google Alerts for your site:
Step One
	Go to Google Alerts and log in (or create an account if you don’t yet have one).
Step Two
	Create a link alert, which will tell Google to email you whenever it finds another site that links to yours. To create a link alert enter the following:
	Search terms = link:http://YourUrl.com (change http://YourUrl.com to you site’s URL) Type = Web (you can choose any of the options but Web is for web results only) How Often = Whatever you want Your email = Your email address
	Click the ‘Create Alert‘ button.
	Note: In the above example I wrote the URL without ‘www‘. I suggest you create two link alerts; one with the www and one without. Simply repeat step two and add the www to your URL.
Step Three
	Create a site alert, which will tell Google to email you whenever it finds a page from your site. To create a site alert enter the following:
	Search terms = site:http://YourUrl.com (change http://YourUrl.com to you site’s URL) Type = Web (you can choose any of the options but Web is for web results only) How Often = Whatever you want Your email = Your email address
	Click the ‘Create Alert‘ button.
	Note: In the above example I wrote the URL without ‘www‘. I suggest you create two site alerts; one with the www and one without. Simply repeat step three and add the www to your URL.
.

That’s it. Now, just sit back and wait for the alerts to be emailed to you. If you ever change your mind you can modify your settings or delete the alert altogether.

Rochelle