Not appearing in Google Alerts - Is this an SEO problem?

[coachm]

I don't know if others do this, but I have a bunch of alerts set up in Google to keep up with what is going on in my areais of interest. I'm also adding new material to my sites related to those interests, pretty regularly.

But, I don't ever recall showing up in the alerts about red widgets, even though the new material is about red widgets, is unique, new content, and presumably has more value than most of the posts that do show up in the alerts.

Any thoughts on whether this is an SEO issue, and what can be done to fix it?

[Andy Langton]

I pondered this question a while back - if there is any significance of those URLs that appear in Google Alerts?

I won't pretend to have done any great research, but my conclusion at the time was that there was no rhyme or reason to it.

[deadsea]

It appears to me that Google recently change the criteria for appearing in alerts. They made it much stricter. I have alerts set for my own full name and my brand name. I used to get several alerts a month, most of which were junk. Things like '<your brand>.com on <stupid domain rating site>.com'.

I haven't had those in a while. The only thing I got this month was when I change my StackOverflow account to use my full name rather than a nickname. I got a google alert on my full name for my profile page. I didn't get alerts on the other stack exchange sites where I also changed my name, nor for any of the questions and answers on any of the sites where my full name now appears.

[netmeg]

Danny doesn't think they're working these days.

[searchengineland.com...]

I'm off season so I don't know if mine are working or not.

[Robert Charlton]

I don't remember where I saw it, but very recently saw someone mention that Google alerts are much less informative than they used to be... and less frequent as well.

[paparoysan]

i run a site about small island in Mediterranean.

the site has thousands of pages, rank #1 #2 or #3 for most of keywords. the site is doing well.

however, it very rarely appears on google alerts although i run regular news blog and forum as part of the site

instead, every single post from tripadvisor forum (even small posts, mostly 1 sentence questions)comes every day in my inbox from google alerts.

frustrating :/

[ColourOfSpring]

Google Alerts is as broken as their link: command is.

[netmeg]

Mashable had a post about it yesterday too. They're either broken or going away.