Google Alerts restores RSS Feeds

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Google Alerts is a basic research tool for anyone putting together a search of news about a topic. And it has now had one of its most useful features restored – the ability to subscribe to an RSS feed of your Alerts results.

Google Alerts RSS Feed Returns highlighted

Delivery of Google Alerts via RSS Feed is restored

This feature had been a long standing part of Google Alerts until Google Reader was phased out last spring. At that time, Google also removed the ability for Alerts users to subscribe to RSS feeds, leaving only email delivery of results.

I don’t know about you, but I try to preserve my email box for one to one interactions. That means finding other ways to receive one to many and other types of notices and news. And by far and away, RSS is my preferred method for this purpose.

So, I was delighted to discover that Google had restored RSS feeds as a delivery mechanism for Alerts.

Thank you Google! You’ve just made yourself even more useful and indispensable.

Want a Google Reader Replacement? Feedly is the hands down popular choice.

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Feedly 130324

Are you like me, still testing a number of possible Google Reader replacements?

Well, it appears that Feedly is emerging as the popular Reader alternative. TechCrunch reported that Feedly “became the No. 1 news app across all three top mobile platforms (iPhone, iPad and Android) this week. It even climbed into the “Top Overall” section within all three stores.” This follows news that Feedly had picked up over 500,000 new users within days of Google’s announcement that it would shut down Reader.

Are Google Alerts on the Endangered List?

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Google Alerts 130324I use Google Alerts to track references to my company and industry. Over time, I’ve noticed that the results have been sporadic and unreliable. I thought it was a problem with the search terms I’d set up. It turns out the problem wasn’t at my end. It’s at Google’s end. I found a Danny Sullivan post from mid-February noting that “It was awesome; but for several weeks, it’s become nearly useless.“ Google assured Sullivan that they were fixing the problem with alerts. But they didn’t. I’ve seen no change with Google Alerts. It’s continued to miss finding stuff I know it should be locating, Sullivan posted last week. Shortly after that, Mashable noted the same problem and investigated. Their conclusion: “Something definitely seems to be broken with the current Google Alerts system.”

Oh Oh. Is Google lavishing the same indifference on Google Alerts that presaged the shutdown of Reader?