Yesterday Google allowed users to subscribe to their alerts via an RSS feed instead of email. I prefer this option as my RSS reader is open almost all day and I like to know about things as they happen. Sure, that was always available for the email notice too, but RSS is so much easier.

To get an alert through RSS, head over to google.com/alerts and set up (or change) an alert’s “deliver to” menu to feed.

The frequency menu will go away because RSS is delivered as it happens. Here’s what you should see if you se it up correctly.

You’ll be given an RSS link, which you can copy and paste into your reader of choice (or add it straight to Google Reader). After I heard about this yesterday, my alerts went from three to about 10. If you’re a blogger not already using Alerts, you really should set it up. It only takes a few minutes and it’ll let you know whenever your keywords are mentioned elsewhere. Alerts you should set up include your name, your blog’s name, your Twitter handle, etc.

As always, ReadWriteWeb has a fantastic article on using these new feeds with Yahoo! Pipes to filter out duplicates and do other fancy things, so check that out.