Google Alerts alternative, and what to do when it isn't working

You enter a search term and Google Alerts emails you new results for it. Under "Show options" you choose:

• How often: as-it-happens, at most once a day, or at most once a week.
• Sources: automatic, news, blogs, web, video, books, discussions or finance.
• Language and region.
• How many: only the best results, or all results.
• The Google account that receives the email.

You edit or delete alerts from the Alerts page, or unsubscribe through the link in an alert email. You need a Google account. The help article says alerts are built on Google Search results. Google's pages say nothing about scoring, drafting replies, Slack delivery or a team inbox.

Google's own troubleshooting steps for missing alerts are:

1. Check you're signed in to the account the alerts belong to.
2. Open the Alerts page and see whether alerts were disabled. If so, click Enable.
3. Check the settings on each alert, such as frequency, sources and region.
4. Make sure your inbox isn't full and the alerts aren't landing in spam. Add googlealerts-noreply@google.com to your contacts.

If all of that checks out and you still see no forum or social posts, the tool is working as designed. An alert is a saved Google search. It can't report a post that isn't in Google's results yet, and it only returns what Google chooses to show for your term. For a topic like "looking for a tool that does X", the most useful posts are often a few hours old, in a thread search engines haven't picked up.

Google Alerts is the better choice for tracking news coverage, press mentions and new web pages about a name or topic. It also makes a sensible free first layer for anyone monitoring a brand or competitor. If your needs are broad and you have no budget, it's hard to beat.

• Direct reading of the places buyers post. Tools that read X and Reddit themselves don't depend on a search index.
• Delivery where your team works. Slack or a shared inbox is easier to act on than one person's email.
• A judgment per post. A keyword match isn't a buyer. With a score and the sentence behind it, you don't have to read everything.
• Freshness you can state. Ask how often it checks, and don't trust a promise of every post.
• A reply step with a person in control.

HearBuyers fits if the posts you wish Google Alerts caught are people on X and Reddit asking for what you sell. You paste your company website, and HearBuyers infers your product summary, buyer roles, the problems buyers describe, search phrases, competitors and subreddits. You correct whatever it got wrong. It reads public X posts and replies and Reddit posts and comments, starting with the last seven days and then on a schedule.

Each post gets a score from 0 to 100, along with the sentence that shows the need and a one-line reason. Matches at or above your threshold (70 by default) get a drafted public reply and, on X, a DM draft. A person edits, approves, copies and posts it. Alerts go to Slack, a daily email digest and a team inbox with stages.

It doesn't fit if you want news and press coverage, general web pages, books or finance results, because HearBuyers doesn't search the open web. It's free for 14 days with no card, then from $19 a month.

Keep Google Alerts for news and web mentions. It costs nothing, and HearBuyers doesn't replace it. Add HearBuyers when you want the conversations on X and Reddit that Google Alerts can't see.

1. List the alert terms you set up to find people, not press.
2. Sign up for HearBuyers and paste your company website.
3. Check its suggested search phrases and add any of your terms that are missing.
4. Add competitor names and the subreddits where your buyers ask.
5. Set your threshold and connect Slack.

See the X keyword alerts and Reddit keyword alerts pages, or the guide to free social listening tools.