‘Google Alerts‘ are a simple way to monitor the Internet for subjects in which you have a particular interest. For example, you might like to know whenever your MP’s name appears online, or a certain topic arises in conjunction with their name.

Google Alerts lets you set up a search which will then email you whenever your chosen search terms appear online. You can choose to be emailed as-it-happens, once a day or once a week.

You may need to tweek your search terms at first, particularly if you search on a common name, for example ‘John Smith’, by adding the constituency name, or telling it not to return results containing particular trigger words. So for example, your initial search could be:

“John Smith” parliament

but if there’s an MP called John Smith, say in Australia, you could then amend the search to read

“John Smith” parliament -Australia

and so on.

You can set up as many alerts as you like, and can customise them by choosing in which languages it searches and where in the world you want the results to come from.

Have a look at the Google Alerts page for more information: http://www.google.co.uk/alerts