How to Set Up Google Alerts for Your Own Name
Go to google.com/alerts, type your name in quotation marks into the box at the top, click Show options to choose how often and which sources, then click Create Alert. Google will email you when it finds new search results that match.
That takes two minutes. Getting alerts that are actually useful, and not a stream of strangers who share your name, takes a little more thought. Here's how to do both.
Step 1: Sign in to the right account
Alerts go to the Google Account you're signed in to. Before creating anything, check the account shown in the top corner of the Alerts page. Google's help page says that if alerts aren't arriving, the wrong account is the first thing to check. If you don't use Gmail day to day, use an account whose inbox you actually read.
Step 2: Write the query
Put your name in straight double quotes, for example "Jordan Ellis". In Google Search, quotes ask for an exact match of a phrase, so you get pages with your full name together rather than every page mentioning Jordan and Ellis separately.
Then think about how your name really appears online. Create a separate alert for each form people use:
If your name is shared by a well-known person, the minus operator helps. Google's search help lists - in front of a word as the way to exclude it, so "Jordan Ellis" -football filters out an athlete who shares your name. Don't over-filter, though. Every exclusion is a chance to miss something about you.
- Full name with and without a middle initial: "Jordan Ellis" and "Jordan M. Ellis"
- Nicknames or shortened first names: "Jordy Ellis"
- A former or maiden name, if it's still attached to your career
- Your name plus your company, town or profession if your name is common: "Jordan Ellis" Denver
- Your business name, and the owner's name paired with it
Step 3: Choose your options
Click Show options under the box. Here's what each setting on the Alerts page does and a sensible starting choice:
Click Create Alert. Your alerts are listed under My alerts on the same page.
- How often: As-it-happens, At most once a day or At most once a week. For your own name, once a day is a good balance. Choose as-it-happens only if you're dealing with an active situation.
- Sources: Automatic, or narrow to News, Blogs, Web, Video, Books, Discussions or Finance. Leave it on Automatic unless you're only worried about one type of source.
- Language: pick the language you'd expect content about you to appear in, or leave it on any language.
- Region: Any Region or a specific country. If you're US-based, United States cuts noise from namesakes abroad.
- How many: Only the best results or All results. For your own name, choose All results. The filtered setting can skip a small forum post or a low-traffic site, which is exactly the kind of thing you want to know about early.
- Account: Google's help page notes you can also choose which account gets the alert.
Step 4: Make sure the emails reach you
Google suggests two checks if nothing shows up: make sure your inbox isn't full, and make sure alert emails aren't landing in spam. In Gmail, adding googlealerts-noreply@google.com to your contacts helps. If Alerts shows a message that your alerts have been disabled, click Enable.
Editing and deleting alerts
To change an alert, go to Google Alerts, click Edit next to it, adjust the options and click Update Alert. To delete one, click Delete next to it, or use the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of any alert email. Prune alerts that only ever bring namesakes. An alert you've learned to ignore is worse than none.
What Google Alerts won't catch
Alerts are useful, but they are not complete monitoring. Plan around these gaps:
- Only new, indexed pages. Alerts report new results Google finds. A page that's been ranking for your name for years won't trigger one. Search your name manually once to see the starting point.
- Most social media. Posts behind logins, in private groups or in stories generally never reach Google's index.
- Reviews inside platforms. A new one-star review on a business listing may not trigger an alert. If you run a business, turn on notifications inside each review platform too. Our review management page covers that setup.
- Your contact details. Alerts watch for text you type, not for your phone number or address being posted on people-search sites. For that, use Google's Results about you tool, which is built for it, or see our personal info removal page.
- Images and video content. Alerts match text. A photo of you with no name nearby won't show up.
A simple routine that works
Alerts are the passive layer. Pair them with a short manual check:
If an alert surfaces something genuinely harmful, don't reply publicly on impulse. Figure out what it is first: personal info, a review, an article, a fake profile. Each has a different route, and some can be removed while most need a different approach.
- Daily: skim alert emails. Most will be irrelevant, and that's fine.
- Monthly: search your name in a private browser window and look at the first two pages of results, plus the Images and News tabs.
- When something appears: save the URL and take a screenshot with the date before you do anything else. Content changes and disappears, and a record helps if you later ask a site or Google to act.
When outside help makes sense
For most people, a few well-built alerts and a monthly self-search are enough. It's worth getting help when alerts start showing a pattern, like repeated posts from the same person, content spreading across sites, or something that could affect a job search. If you're in the middle of a job hunt, our page on reputation repair for job seekers covers what employers tend to see.
Want this handled for you? See our online reputation repair service.
