New Google Bookmarklet for Google Web Alerts

I've written about bookmarklets in the past. As you may remember, they're small snippets of JavaScript that you save as a bookmark. Then you click on them and they do various things depending on the JavaScript.

And as you may also remember, Google recently started offering the ability to monitor its pages directly for search results. You can see the Google Web alerts at http://www.google.com/webalerts . Web alerts will check Google's index periodically (once a day or once a week) and send you an e-mail when there are new pages matching your query.

I made a bookmarklet for this which you may use to automatically fill out the Web alerts form. You'll need to make ONE CHANGE TO IT before you save it as a bookmark.

Here's the version for Internet Explorer:

javascript:inText=document.selection.createRange().text;if(!inText){void(inText=prompt('Keywords...',''))};if(inText)location.href='http://www.google.com/webalerts?&q=%22'+escape(inText)+'%22&f=6&e=example@example.com&f=0'

Here's the version for Opera (try it in Mozilla):

javascript:inText=document.getSelection();if(!inText){void(inText=prompt('Keywords...',''))};if(inText)location.href='http://www.google.com/webalerts?&q=%22'+escape(inText)+'%22&f=6&e=example@example.com&f=0'

Now, the one change. See where it says example@example.com ? Change that to whatever address you want Google to send notifications of new pages. (You will have to verify the alert via this address, so make sure it's a working address!)

Once you've done this, save that whole JavaScript as a bookmark, preferably in a toolbar where you can get to it easily.

When I wrote this, I did so at the request of someone who wanted a way to monitor the Web and see if his content was ending up on other pages. You can use this bookmarklet in one of two ways:

* Click on it from your bookmarks and then enter the word(s) you want to monitor in the box. Any phrases will be automatically saved in quotes, OR * Highlight the phrase you want to search from a web page and click the bookmarklet. Again, any phrases will be automatically saved in quotes.

After that, you'll be taken to a Google Web Alert page, with your highlighted phrase in quotes. Click on Create Web Alert and you'll be all set. Google will send you an e-mail to confirm the Alert.

This doesn't use the Google API so you won't need a key; it's just a quick way to make a Google Web alert.

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