A Sampling of Sites Offering Customized E-Mail Alerts

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Arrange Online. Users can sign up to receive a free alert from a national obituary archive whenever an obituary matches their search criteria. Search categories are family name, hometown, club or church membership, alma mater, business name, or military service affiliation. Go to http://arrangeonline.com/notify/main.asp

Bizjournals. This site’s “Search Watch” service offers free, customized weekly alerts based on a search of 40 business newspapers in midsize to large cities. Users can monitor information about specific individuals, companies, or other topics using a keyword search. Searches can also be limited to specific journals in one or more of the 40 cities. Go to http://bizjournals.bcentral.com/account/search_watch/

The company also offers a weekly alert service based on searches of new business licenses and home sales in cities served by the business journals. Go to http://bizjournals.bcentral.com/contactus/businessrecord.html

Company Sleuth. This site lets users create a portfolio of companies and then track stock performance as well as general news and information about those companies. Users can select two companies to monitor free. To search additional companies or to do searches on the site’s restricted databases, users must pay a $79.95 annual fee. Go to http://www.companysleuth.com/registration.cfm

Forbes. The magazine’s online “People Tracker” feature allows users to sign up for free alerts based on searches of news and information about 126,000 executives at public companies, celebrities, and people listed in the Forbes 400 ranking of the wealthiest Americans. Go to http://www.forbes.com/peopletracker/

Hoover’s. This site offers a weekly news-alert service about initial public stock offerings. Users can customize searches based on several categories, but cannot specify individual companies. The alert also tracks registration statements, which are filed before a company becomes public and often include details about executive pay and benefits, company ownership, competitors, industry trends, and other information. Go to http://alertwizard.hoovers.com/

Insider Trader. This site sends out alerts to users when high-level corporate executives, known as “insiders,” trade stock. Users can sign up for free alerts based on a search for a specific company. A fee-based version of the alert includes options for searching by an individual’s name. All alerts also provide a calculation of the value of shares traded, as well as information on the stock owner’s remaining holdings. Free alerts are available on up to 50 companies. Go to http://www.insidertrader.com/portfolio/free_portfolio_sample.asp.

IPO Lockup. Users can sign up to receive free alerts when the “lock up” period — the time following an initial public offering when certain employees holding stock are not allowed to sell or give it away — ends. Go to http://www.ipolockup.com/registration.cfm.

IPO Monitor. This site offers alerts on pricing, recent filings, and related news articles about initial public offerings. A free weekly newsletter is available, but other services, including customized alerts, require a $29-per-month or $290-per-year subscription fee. Go to http://www.ipomonitor.com/svc/#Anchor-Emai-26760.

Northern Light. This site offers customized e-mail alerts based on searches of general news and information sources. Users can set up alerts to track individuals, organizations, or any other search terms they define. The site displays all results free, but there is a fee of $1 to $4 to retrieve the full text of articles from the site’s “special collections,” which include articles from PR Newswire, Business Wire, Reuters, the Associated Press, daily newspapers, and college newspapers. Users can set up an unlimited number of alerts. Go to http://www.northernlight.com/docs/alerts_help_about.html.

Scoop. Another general news alert service, this site allows users to sign up for alerts based on searches of more than 3,000 newspapers, business journals, magazines, trade and professional journals, and wire services. Users pay a flat $29.95 monthly fee for full access to all articles. The site offers a 14-day free trial subscription to its service. Go to http://www.scoop.com.

10-K Wizard. This site offers free, customized e-mail alerts that contain data from Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including stock transactions by top company employees, reports on initial public offerings, and other information. Alerts can be customized by company name, ticker symbol, industry type, individual’s name, and other keywords. Go to http://www.10kwizard.com/alerts_help.php.

The Wall Street Journal. This newspaper’s Web site offers users the option of signing up for free e-mail alerts that track news and stock information on up to 10 companies. Additional alerts, as well as alerts that include specialized information — such as a markets alert or a technology alert — are only available to subscribers. Full access to the site costs $29 a year for subscribers to the print edition of The Wall Street Journal, $59 a year for nonsubscribers. Go to http://public.wsj.com/emailcenter/subscribe.html.

Yahoo Finance. This site allows users to track individual company stocks by signing up for free alerts that are triggered when a stock hits a particular price or increases or decreases by a certain percentage. Alerts include links to detailed profile information with extensive current data about the company. Go to http://alerts.yahoo.com/config/set_notification?.t=q

Yahoo Real Estate. Users can sign up for free alerts to get updates on recent real-estate sales. Searches are limited only to real-estate transactions that are recorded electronically. Go to http://alerts.yahoo.com/config/set_notification?.t=c&.s=e.