Can't have it both ways. That is what I am finding out. I love blogging and Google Alerts, but on some days I just don't.
I use Google Alerts for several surnames, with the word obituary, as well as certain town names. In addition, I use my name + blog. As a result, just about every day there is a listing of alerts with my name. Often it is for my blog, but sometimes for another blog owned by another Barbara Poole. So far, I have determined there are three other Barbara Pooles with blogs. I decided to list them below, and maybe some day down the road, I will write each of them to see if they are interested in the Poole genealogy, as in my genealogy. Quite possibly they are using their husband's surname, but maybe they are like me, in that I don't use my husband's name. Barbara Poole blogs I've discovered are:
http://barbarapoole.blogspot.com/ (Boston artist who lives in my area.)
http://www.bfelt.com/ Lots about felt...it is her business.
Readers have also contacted me, perhaps because of Google Alerts. In my Can't Get to a Conference? blog, I received a very nice comment from a well-known Certified Genealogist, actually the one mentioned in the article (I am not mentioning her name again, because I don't want this to show up in Google Alerts on her computer). If you go to the link, you will see her comment. Another instance, my blog showed up because of their Google Alert when I posted 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy Challenge #1 a blog about my local library, the reference librarian wrote me.
Now the madness. It isn't that I don't like Google Alerts, I do, as a matter of fact I love them. What I don't like are the fact that often my comments show up. I am still a little naive in that I think a comment to so and so, is pretty much private, except other bloggers can view them. But the whole world, that I don't want. I've been pretty careful about what I write recently. When I first discovered this happens was about four years ago, when I was commenting a lot on Steve Danko's site. I had him remove my last name. Later I changed my mind, now I am rethinking that again.
An example is what I replied to Earline Hines Bradt of Ancestral Notes on November 16, 2009, my comment to her showed up in a Google search with my name + blog. "Earline, Congratulations, I read your blog every time you write, and you deserve the award. Also, .............."
Nope, I don't like that, that the world can see my comments.