Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
What makes a site appear in Google Alerts? And does it mean anything?
-
Hi All,
I recently started using Google Alerts more and more and while sites I support never appear there (not surprising) I recently noticed few very poor and low quality sites that do.
This site for example appears quite a bit in its niche.
So to my questions...
What makes a site appear in Google Alerts? And does it mean anything?
Thanks
-
Great article though MOZ for example does not appear in "news" search which seems weird. Does it mean it won't come up in alerts for terms like "SEO"...?
Also, do you think I should ask for inclusion in the news? Does it help with SEO?
-
Thanks Andy-Halliday but this is not what I meant (though it is a good implementation which I practice also).
I wondered why some sites articles get noted and others don't. gazzerman1's response seems right and the article he referred stated that you might ask for inclusion (MOZ for example does not appear in the news and therefore may not appear in "search term" alerts though I doubt it).
Anyhow, this also led to my next question if it means anything if it is good to ask to be included in the news:Â http://moz.com/community/q/does-including-your-site-in-google-news-and-google-alerts-helps-with-seo
Thanks
-
As others have said, alerts will come to you based on the search terms and frequency you have told Google - you can change these if the results emailed to you aren't what you are looking for.
In terms of what it means, all it means is that the web pages have matched the terms you asked for. Â It doesn't mean the pages are of any set quality or ranking.
Alerts are great for tracking mentions of your brand and those of competitors.
-
I probably have to go with the Ady’s idea on Google Alters! This is exactly how I think Google Alters works!!
-
Just to correct a little something on here, you don't need to have anything in Google news or be in the top 10 for anything.
Google Alerts will trigger based on your keywords / phrase and then mail you based on your criteria as they are discovered. I have a lot of these set "as they happen" and are all related to brand mentions / articles of interest.
-Andy
-
I have a google alerts for 'brand name' and set it to email every time the 'brand name' appears on the web.
Its then when Google finds a new mention of my 'brand name' anywhere on the web it triggers an alert to me.
It doesn't send me historical mentions on the brand, but it does send me an email every time the brand is mentioned. I sometimes get really old articles but it just means Google have just found the article.
If its on the bigger, more popular sites I can get alerts within minutes / hours of the article going live, sometimes its a few weeks later and the longest I've had is a few years.
So the alerts are triggered every time Google find a new mention of the 'search term' you have requested. They don't send historical mentions about the brand.
-
Basically you need to be in Google News and then the article thats in the news must reach the top 10 in Search Results
Looks like this should cover all your questions
http://homebusiness.about.com/od/yourbusinesswebsite/a/google-alerts.htm
I actually learnt something myself as well on there, thanks for making me refresh my memory
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Splitting One Site Into Two Sites Best Practices Needed
Okay, working with a large site that, for business reasons beyond organic search, wants to split an existing site in two. So, the old domain name stays and a new one is born with some of the content from the old site, along with some new content of its own. The general idea, for more than just search reasons, is that it makes both the old site and new sites more purely about their respective subject matter. The existing content on the old site that is becoming part of the new site will be 301'd to the new site's domain. So, the old site will have a lot of 301s and links to the new site. No links coming back from the new site to the old site anticipated at this time. Would like any and all insights into any potential pitfalls and best practices for this to come off as well as it can under the circumstances. For instance, should all those links from the old site to the new site be nofollowed, kind of like a non-editorial link to an affiliate or advertiser? Is there weirdness for Google in 301ing to a new domain from some, but not all, content of the old site. Would you individually submit requests to remove from index for the hundreds and hundreds of old site pages moving to the new site or just figure that the 301 will eventually take care of that? Is there substantial organic search risk of any kind to the old site, beyond the obvious of just not having those pages to produce any more? Anything else? Any ideas about how long the new site can expect to wander the wilderness of no organic search traffic? The old site has a 45 domain authority. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
How can I make a list of all URLs indexed by Google?
I started working for this eCommerce site 2 months ago, and my SEO site audit revealed a massive spider trap. The site should have been 3500-ish pages, but Google has over 30K pages in its index. I'm trying to find a effective way of making a list of all URLs indexed by Google. Anyone? (I basically want to build a sitemap with all the indexed spider trap URLs, then set up 301 on those, then ping Google with the "defective" sitemap so they can see what the site really looks like and remove those URLs, shrinking the site back to around 3500 pages)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bryggselv.no0 -
When i search for my domain name - google asks "did you mean" - why?
Hi all, I just noticed something quite odd - if i do a search for my domain name (see: http://goo.gl/LBc1lz) google shows my domain as first result, but it also asks "did i mean" and names another website with very similar name. the other site has far lower PA/DA according to Moz, any ideas why google is doing this? and more inportantly how i could stop it? please advise James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | isntworkdull0 -
Micro sites?
Hi, I have been speaking to seo firms regarding strategies and they mentioned setting up micro sites under domains that are relevant. i.e setting up armanidoamin.co.uk and we use it as a blog type site to update all info, product reviews, news relating to armani. Whats peoples thoughts on this? Does it work? Is it worth the effort? Im not so sure but obviously looking for ideas. Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | YNWA0 -
Franchise sites on subdomains
I've been asked by a client to optimise a a webpage for a location i.e. London. Turns out that the location is actually a franchise of the main company. When the company launch a new franchise, so far they have simply added a new page to the main site, for example: mysite.co.uk/sub-folder/london They have so far done this for 10 or so franchises and task someone with optimising that page for their main keyword + location. I think I know the answer to this, but would like to get a back up / additional info on it in terms of ranking / seo benefits. I am going to suggest the idea of using a subdomain for each location, example: london.mysite.co.uk Would this be the correct approach. If you think yes, why? Many thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Webrevolve0 -
Is it possible to Spoof Analytics to give false Unique Visitor Data for Site A to Site B
Hi, We are working as a middle man between our client (website A) and another website (website B) where, website B is going to host a section around websites A products etc. The deal is that Website A (our client) will pay Website B based on the number of unique visitors they send them. As the middle man we are in charge of monitoring the number of Unique visitors sent though and are going to do this by monitoring Website A's analytics account and checking the number of Unique visitors sent. The deal is worth quite a lot of money, and as the middle man we are responsible for making sure that no funny business goes on (IE false visitors etc). So to make sure we have things covered - What I would like to know is 1/. Is it actually possible to fool analytics into reporting falsely high unique visitors from Webpage A to Site B (And if so how could they do it). 2/. What could we do to spot any potential abuse (IE is there an easy way to spot that these are spoofed visitors). Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | James770 -
Getting Google to Correct a Misspelled Site Link...Help!
My company website recently got its site links in google search... WooHoo! However, when you type TECHeGO into Google Search one of the links is spelled incorrectly. Instead of 'CONversion Optimization' its 'COversion Optimization'. At first I thought there was a misspelling on that page somewhere but there is not and have come to the conclusion that Google has made a mistake. I know that I can block the page in webmaster tools (No Thanks) but how in the crap can I get them to correct the spelling when no one really knows how to get them to appear in the first place? Riddle Me That Folks! sitelink.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TECHeGO0 -
How to make SEF URL for PHP/MySQL web site
Hi mozzers! I'm fairly new to SEO topic, but I'm learning fast because all of you, so please take my warm thanks first! The problem: I have a web site based on PHP/MySQL that has no SEF addresses, it's made by unknown CMS, so I cannot use any extensions or modules, I have to write my own SEF extension. The question: Would you suggest me, please an article or idea, what I need to make my URLs search engine friendly? What's best to use: .htaccess or something else? This is the aforementioned web site: www.nortrak.bg Thanks a lot, Kolio
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kolio_kolev0