What is Google Public Alerts?
Google Public Alerts is Google’s new platform for disseminating emergency messages such as evacuation notices for hurricanes, and everyday alerts such as storm warnings. We’re starting by showing relevant weather, public safety and earthquake alerts from US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Weather Service, and the US Geological Survey (USGS) when you search on Google Maps.
Google Public Alerts is a project of the Google Crisis Response team, supported by Google.org, which uses Google's strengths in information and technology to build products and advocate for policies that address global challenges. We hope Google Public Alerts provides the public with information it needs to make better decisions in times of crisis.
This is a new product and we’re learning all the time about when and how we should show this important information. While we can’t guarantee that you’ll see every alert when searching on Google Maps we’re doing our best to show what’s important when you need it, and hope that Google Public Alerts is a useful additional source of information. We’re working hard to improve what you see and appreciate your feedback which you can provide using the “Feedback” links on alert details pages and on www.google.org/publicalerts.
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Why is Google building a public alerting service?
We want to make it easy for people to find critical emergency information during a crisis through the online tools they use every day. By incorporating public alert data from authoritative sources in to Google Maps, we aim to simplify the process of searching for emergency information.
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What kinds of alerts does Google Public Alerts show?
Google Public Alerts currently shows weather, public safety and earthquake alerts from US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Weather Service, and the US Geological Survey (USGS).
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How does Google decide which alerts are available?
The Google Public Alerts service uses alerts provided by our authoritative, trusted partners. What alert you see (if any) depends on what alerts are active at a given location, on their severity, and on what you search for and where. To see all alerts go to the Google Public Alerts homepage.
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How does Google work with official alerting services like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)?
Google partners with alert providers to show relevant alerts to Google users. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Weather Service, and the US Geological Survey provide alert feeds and our goal is to enable Google users to see them when they’re relevant. We’ve also built an Alert Hub that aggregates alerts and allows others to develop ways to re-distribute them online.
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I can already see weather on Google Maps or on another site. Why do I need this?
We’re just getting started, but over time Google Public Alerts will become even more unique as a platform for disseminating many different kinds of emergency alerts, beyond just weather. We’re working hard to make this information appear across many more of Google’s services when it’s relevant.
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Why don't I see any alerts when I search on Google Maps?
What alert you see (if any) depends on what you search for and where, as well as on the severity of any alerts that might be active at a given location. To see all alerts go to the Google Public Alerts homepage.
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Will you be putting Google Public Alerts on Google Web Search?
We’re excited to have released a way to show you the alerts from various agencies on Google Maps. We hope this is just the beginning and we plan on making relevant alerts visible on other Google products in the future.
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How do I report inaccurate or inappropriate content?
Please use the send feedback link on the bottom right of our Google Public Alerts homepage or on the details page for an individual alert. Make sure to give us as much detail as you can.
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The National Weather Service is great, but why don’t you have alerts from my city or state agency?
We’re just getting started! We’re beginning with a few key partners but plan on expanding this service where there’s relevant data.
There are a couple of things you can do to make it more likely you’ll see locally produced alerts, including contacting your local emergency management agency and asking them to follow the steps outlined below to get their data in the right format and to let us know they’d like to be included.
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Why are you using the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)?
CAP is an international standard for publishing and sharing alerts. We need to use a common standard, otherwise we have no consistent way to automatically receive and re-use alerting information. We strongly encourage all agencies to adopt international standards like CAP for sharing public alerts, and publish them securely using open web formats like Atom and RSS. -
I'm from a Public Safety agency and I'd love to see our alerts on Google Public Alerts. How do I make that happen?
Google is starting with US-based alerts, then adding international content. We're being careful about the sources and quality of alerts and when we show them to our users. We are still learning the best way to do this with new sources. Contact us if you are interested in participating. You can get a head start by following these 4 steps:
- Get your alerts into the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP 1.2) standard. Here are some resources we created to help you with this process. Most commercial alert publishing tools support CAP already.
- Validate that you've set-up your feeds correctly and that your CAP is correct.
- Subscribe your alerts to Alert Hub and check that they're working.
- Let us know when you're ready so we can start on the next steps.
