Quit Googling Yourself, Use RSS Instead
Google is adding RSS to search result pages allows you to plug the feed into a newsreader and get notified of new listings automatically.
The initial report came from a very brief mention in an October 1 Wall Street Journal article by Katherine Boehret and confirmed Wednesday by Search Engine Land.
Google is bound to satisfy a bunch of eager marketing managers and even a few vain bloggers by adding RSS to their search results. Oh, OK, it will be useful to the rest of us simply concerned with tracking internet footprints too.
Previously, if you wanted an RSS feed composed of Google search results all about your glorious self, you’d have to set up a feed on feedmysearch.com or resort to Microsoft’s okay Live.com coverage. The update to search results pages should happen “soon” according to a Google spokesperson’s e-mail to SearchEngineLand.
It’s been a wanted feature for many, particularly search engine optimizers and those competing for Google’s top position on search terms. Being in the top position on Google Search typically translates to easy cash via free advertising and gross amounts of traffic.
For the rest of us, the feature adds some utility to your most common search results. These would be the ones you used to have Google Alerts for. For example, your name, favorite band, company, etc…
We have Google Alerts up now for e-mail alerts on the keyword “Webmonkey” and it gives us a chance to see who is linking to us and why. It’s also a good way to see what people are saying what about us behind our backs (we’re looking at you, Steven B. Smithely. That’s right, we’re watching you).
If the RSS feeds were available now, we’d set up our newsreader to look out for “google search rss” and get the scoop as soon as the new feature was available. For now, we’ll be repeatedly pressing the reload button on search results in breathless anticipation.
[via ReadWriteWeb> SearchEngineLand]
