To answer this comprehensively, we conducted a detailed study: How Good is Google Alerts For Tracking Companies? — A Litmus Test.
Below is a summary of our findings:
Content Volume: On average, Google Alerts gives 15 news items per day per company. This is too much to read even if you need to track 5 to 7 companies. On the contrary, Contify filters out irrelevant noise and gives only 4 items per company (4x shorter alert than Google Alerts).
Content Relevance: In Google Alerts out of 100 news items only 10 are unique and business relevant. There is a large number of similar and non-business (stock calls) updates. In comparison, Contify delivers 4x relevant articles than Google Alerts (while Contify Alerts is already 4x shorter)
Unique Content: Google News does not index many webpages that are crucial for comprehensive tracking of companies such as company websites, regulators' announcement pages, and more. Contify has 40% more content that is unique and not covered in Google Alerts.
Custom Sources: Google Alerts are based on selected (and highly reputed) news sources, and doesn’t provide flexibility to add custom sources. Contify adds custom sources for its users, e.g. specific sections of company and regulatory websites, product review sites, discussion forums, and more.
Contextual Tags: Contify content is tagged with subjective tags such as Funding Activity, M&A Activities, Leadership Changes, Business Expansion, and more. User can further filter down relevant content using these tags or other categories such as Company, Industry, Location, etc. Contify's MI Enterprise customers can also create their own tags (custom taxonomy) based on the structure of their business, industry segments, and KIQs (key intelligence questions) that need to be answered.
Contify is Designed for Information Professionals
The information in Contify uses a proprietary methodology to deliver intelligence to the users. Contify uses a hybrid system, which includes advanced machine learning (clustering, de-duplication, disambiguation, etc.) and human analysts who add subjective context to the information. We deliver market intelligence with Zero Noise. Period.