Some users may need to repeat a search on a regular basis. For the benefit of such users, SearchImprove offers a search alert service.

With SearchImprove, users can subscribe to search alerts from the organization’s website. Search alerts provide users with e-mail alerts whenever new search matches occur. Search alerts are a useful timesaving service to users that need to keep up to date with the latest information from the website.

Who would be interested in search alerts?

Subscription to search alerts is aimed at users who need to repeat a search on the website on a regular basis. These may include journalists who search for press releases about a certain subject; users with a special interest in antiques who regularly need to check the sites of the auction houses; users seeking employment within the organization; or users interested in keeping up to date with local government developments.

What are the benefits of search alerts?

Search alerts by e-mail help increase the exposure of the organization’s website by providing useful information to interested users on a regular basis. Users are regularly reminded that the website provides a high level of service, and provides content that meets their needs. The search alert service may also divert telephone queries to the organization, automatically providing satisfactory responses directly to the user by e-mail.

How does it work?

In order to subscribe to search alerts, the user enters an e-mail address. The user receives an e-mail, requesting a confirmation, so that no alerts are sent to the wrong recipient. When this has been done, SearchImprove repeats the user’s search every day, and alerts the user if changes occur to the search result with an e-mail containing a link to the new or altered document.

When changes are made to a document, the editor is asked to state whether the changes are important to the document content. Subscribers will only be alerted when important changes occur, to avoid unnecessary e-mails. Furthermore, the organization is invited to write a short explanatory text to an altered document, so that the user can easily identify the new content.

SearchImprove’s statistics feature provides information about which search terms users subscribe to. This information is useful to uncover the interests of loyal users. All statistical information is available on SearchImprove’s web based administrative interface.