Google Alerts Gone AWOL

Is anyone else not receiving google alerts that were previously coming through without a problem?

I have not received any since 11th July 2007. I have emailed Google about it, but have only received an automated response saying they read everything. Good for them, well a human response would be better thanks.

I have emailed my service provider, Supanet, who said it's not a problem at their end. I'd maybe be more confident about that if it wasn't that their system was down due to technical problems during that week too.

The other problem is that I am not receiving the comments from on here by email as I usually do, which is annoying as I can't keep checking through reams of different posts to see if someone has left a comment that I should maybe respond to.

Blogspot/Blogger is a google system too, so, maybe it is a google problem.

Can anyone help me out here as to where the problem lies, so that I can at least narrow the culprit down?....lol

Is it a Google problem or purely a Supanet problem?

Over to you folks - I'll read any comments posted here....'cause.......well obviously they won't be emailed to me. lol

Google Search Engine

Well I've been playing about with google add ons and have now added a custom search bar to my site. This is in development, but for the moment all the companies that have labels on here have been added to the list of ones that should come up to the top of searches to help you get more information from the web about them. The engine does search the entire web, not just those sites I have indicated, but it puts emphasis on the ones specified.

eg If you type - appexpress - into the search bar, it is weighted to bring up information from Tadpole Endeavors first followed by any other appexpress information available...............or at least it should......lol Depends on how well I get the background stuff set up.

My home page for the search engine is http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=012200763190033080037%3A4ubh5ldctbq&hl=en

From my blog page or from the home page you can click the +google button and add my search engine to your own personalised google homepage for more defined results on the shares or companies I blog on about.

Like I said, it is in development, so it could change its look several times over the next few days. It did several times last night as I played about with it :o)

Google Finance

I just happened to stumble across this today and its brilliant. Fancy me not already knowing it was there D'oh.

http://finance.google.com/finance

Has everything you want all on one page......you still have to go research the company websites etc for extras and possibly google for gossip, but all stats and news at your fingertips.

Add it to your favourites!

Effective Googling

When investing in any share, you should never jump in because someone else said so. If they have given you some research on it - read it, but don't stop there. If you are about to put your hard earned cash into a company DYOR - Do your own research and then when you are comfortable that you've got the right one for you - take the plunge.

Whats the best way to use google to your advantage. OK lets use Tadpole as the example.

If you type - Tadpole into the search bar you currently get:- Results 1 - 10 of about 2,940,000 for tadpole

Type - Tadpole Technology in and you currently get:-Results 1 - 10 of about 776,000 for tadpole technology

As you can see, by putting in more you get less, but more defined results, however......

If you type "Tadpole Technology" (note the inverted commas around the search item) it turn it into a phrase being searched for and not just 2 seperate words and therefore refines your search even more and you get:- Results 1 - 10 of about 47,100 for "tadpole technology".

Putting the inverted commas around what you are looking for knocks out all the hundreds of thousands of sites and links that just have the word tadpole in them that dont relate to the share and also the sites that mention technology that bear no relation to what you are looking for. Believe me it can reduce the amount of time trying to hunt down information by hours by narrowing the results of the searches.

You can narrow down the results even further if you are looking for something specific by putting in a double search, we'll use tadpole again as the example.

Type in "Tadpole Technology" "Endeavors Technology" (remembering the inverted commas around both phrases seperately)
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,650 for "tadpole Technology" "endeavors technology

Admittedly sometimes the broadest search criteria is best IF you have time to dig as you may unearth something hidden in a page behind a page by digging through the links.

Cant See What you are looking for on a page?
Another thing to note is that sometimes there will be a result comes up that you just can't find on the page where what you are looking for is mentioned. In this case if you press the cached link - www.businessweekly.co.uk/directory/profile.asp?company_id=1001 - 22k - Cached - Similar pagesit will highlight the search word throughout the article.


Click on this link to show the highlighing
example:- http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:LGZW0BjmIZcJ:www.businessweekly.co.uk/directory/profile.asp%3Fcompany_id%3D1001+%22tadpole+technology%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=uk


Use Google Alerts
If you want to be updated on anything new hitting the internet be it news, blogs or investor BB's that relate to the company you are interested in, then use google alerts. These are simple to set up and can be a simple alert or comprehensive alert.

On the Google main search page click more :- Web Images Groups News Froogle more » an this will take you to all the google services and the first one on the list is:- Alerts Receive news and search results via email.

Ok well I think that kind of covers it for searching, but will update it later if I can think of anything else.....happy hunting punters!!!