Okay, I’m being extreme. Not really a crook per se.

Do you know when someone backlinks to your website? Or when your name is used in an article or something online?

Initially I started using Google Alerts to get additional content for my website and other areas of interest. I was getting a lot of emails and some weeks I wasn’t able to keep up. I dropped some notifications and added a few others including my name and my business name.

Imagine all of the emails I received about Tiffany Johnson and variations of the name. Tiffany Johnson is a great athlete, on the dean’s list, junior high honor roll, arrests lists, and of course some that are actually me in regards to my blog posts. My name is super common and I used to not like that. However, I’ve learned to appreciate it because if someone I don’t want to finding me tries to Google my name, they’ll have to look through over 371,000 searches and still may not get to me.

Besides keeping up with all of the Tiffany Johnsons in the world, I also get alerts on Virtual Hired Hand. As soon as an article on my website is indexed, I get an alert. I also get alerted when variations of the name are included in something online.

Last Friday this alert system came in handy.

On Thursday afternoon I posted a fun video for my future freelancers list. It was of me opening my very first affiliate checks. I posted it on YouTube and then put it on my website, Facebook personal profile, and Facebook page.

Friday afternoon I got an alert for Virtual Hired Hand. I looked at the notification and saw my business name in it’s entirety along with the name of the video I’d posted on YouTube the day before. Someone had posted my video on their website. That’s right! Can you believe it?

Fortunately, you cannot edit YouTube videos, so this person uploaded my entire video which included the link to my Facebook page and also in the description a link to my website for anyone to click on.

I was more shocked than anything at how quickly the video got picked up. We’re talking the same day. Yes, the blog post was dated the same day I’d posted it on YouTube. And boy did Google index that page really fast, the very next day.

I checked the site’s Alexa score and it’s over 8 million so I’m not sure how much additional traffic I’ll get as a result. Needless to say my fun little video has officially gone viral. I wouldn’t have known anything about it, well at least not so soon as I did if it weren’t for the Google Alert and the fact that the website was in WordPress.

Important note: WordPress automatically notifies update services each time you post a blog. This is what attracts Google to your site.

If you’re not setup with Google Alerts I strongly recommend you do so. You never know who’s lurking and waiting to pick up your stuff.

Now it’s your turn. Has anyone ever picked up your content or video and placed it on their website? How did you feel?