Google Alerts are useful for discovering when you or your organization’s name is mentioned on the Internet; however, I have noticed a quirk with the software.
As a PR volunteer for the Cameron Siemers Foundation for Hope, I set up a Google Alert for “Cameron Siemers.” However, I continue to receive old stories. Today, I received an alert for his speech at the Ribbon of Hope Awards — from 2005!
I continue to receive articles with his name from years gone by. Has anyone else encountered this issue? Please share.
Update: In addition, a service you might like to explore is StartPR. For a review of its features, see Kaye Sweetser’s post here. Another monitoring service is Tweetscan, which monitors your search terms on twitter.
Hey, Tiffany! I hope your summer is going well! I just started updating my blog on PAWS so stop by and check it out when you can.
Thanks for the note, Jean! It’s great to see that you are getting situated at PAWS. I can imagine all the exercise you get climbing all those hills; I don’t know how you do it in flip-flops!
I just added a widget to my sidebar to feature graduates of my classes who are continuing to blog.
I look forward to continuing to read about your adventures.
Google Alerts is faulty. I too receive either old news or news that is irrelevant to the keyword(s) I am monitoring. Regular manual searches in Google News are the best way to track coverage.
Thanks for your comment, Kyle. It seems like this a universal problem with Google Alerts.
I’ve also been getting old alerts for some time. It is at the point where I’m ignoring most Google alerts. Too bad.
I made the same experience. I think results depends from Google algorythm and sometimes new links appears or re-appears in the Google index.
Bryan, sorry to hear that you are experiencing the same problem.
Olivier, thank you for your insight about this problem, and thank you for visiting my blog.