What's the practical way to setup google alerts?

go to google alerts while logged into your google account, type the term, then hit "show options" before you create it. that's where people go wrong. - put brand names in quotes so it matches the exact phrase - set how often to once a day, not as-it-happens, or your inbox fills up - sources: automatic is fine, but language and region narrow it a lot - set "how many" to all results if you want everything, best results misses plenty add a minus term for anything noisy, e.g. "brandname" -jobs.