Google Alerts Sending Out False Alerts?

Dec 29, 2008 • 7:40 am | comments (4) by | Filed Under Other Google Topics
 

Google Alerts LogoA WebmasterWorld has recent discussion about Google Alerts sending out email alerts for irrelevant topics.

The way Google Alerts works is that it allows you to get updated via email and now via RSS to new items found for a particular search query in web results, news, blog, video or groups or all of them. So if you are into reputation management or if you want to track the search results for a particular keyword, you might use Google Alerts to help you stay on top of particular keywords or keyword phrases.

The problem is, sometimes Google Alerts sends out unwanted alerts due to some bug. The unwanted results can happen due to many reasons including a bug in Google or a spammer sending junk into Google and triggering these alerts.

First reports of this new Google Alert issue started on December 27th, the member said:

Alerts are coming in more frequently for one of our sites BUT there is no relevant content on any of the indicated sites I've look at. On some small sites I've checked all visible pages.

Several other members have complained about this as well. I might think some of this is due to the blog link command issue, which isn't just about links. But overall, that has gotten better, in my opinion. Maybe this is due to something else? I am not sure.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

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