Google Alerts Is Broken. 5 Better Ways to Get Topic Updates by Email
by Tobi ·
For years I had a Google Alert set up for "Free Epic Games". The idea: get notified whenever a cool game goes free, without checking every single day. It worked, sometimes better, sometimes worse.
What actually showed up: news pages that had not changed in months. Forum threads from 2019. The same article three times from three different spam sites. And on the day a really good game actually went free, nothing.
If that sounds familiar, it is not your search term. Google Alerts has a fundamental problem.
Why Google Alerts no longer works
It searches for words, not topics. Google Alerts checks whether your term shows up somewhere new. Whether the article is actually about it or the word just sits once in a footer does not matter. You want to know what is happening in the stock market and you get every page that mentions "S&P 500".
The results are unpredictable. Some days you get twenty hits, then nothing for weeks. You never know whether nothing happened or the alert just did not find it. And that is exactly what makes it useless, because you cannot rely on it.
Nobody filters anything. An alert is a list of links. No summary, no context, no "this one matters, that one does not". You click through and do the work yourself.
Every topic is its own email. Five alerts means five emails. With ten topics you have built your own newsletter mess, just without the good content.
Google Alerts still exists and it is still free. But it is a tool from a time when the web was smaller and had less spam.
5 better ways
1. Talkwalker Alerts: if you want to track mentions
Talkwalker Alerts is basically Google Alerts, just done a bit better. It is also free, you can import your existing Google Alerts, and you get results at any email address you like or via RSS.
Good for: your own name, your company, competitors. Anything where a specific word really is the point.
Not good for: topics. The core problem stays the same, it still searches for terms. And here too, users report that alerts sometimes just deliver nothing.
2. Google News "Following": if you read on your phone anyway
In Google News you can follow topics, sources and places. They end up in your feed under "Following". That is a lot cleaner than Alerts, because Google uses real news sources here instead of the whole web.
Good for: big news topics you want to keep half an eye on.
Not good for: email. You have to open the app yourself, and then you are in a feed and scrolling. If you want to read once in the morning and be done, you can easily lose half an hour here.
3. An RSS reader: if you already know your sources
Feedly, Inoreader or any other RSS reader collects everything from the sites you subscribe to in one place. No spam, because you pick the sources yourself. Many readers can also send you a summary by email.
Good for: people who know exactly which ten blogs and sites they want to read.
Not good for: everyone else. You have to find sources first, then set up and maintain the feeds. And you get everything a source publishes, not just what fits your topic. You end up with 300 unread articles and the same feeling as before.
4. F5Bot: if it is about Reddit and Hacker News
A small, free tool with exactly one job. You enter terms, and F5Bot emails you as soon as they show up on Reddit, Hacker News or Lobsters.
Good for: founders, indie devs and anyone who wants to know where people are talking about their product or niche. Google Alerts almost never finds Reddit discussions.
Not good for: anything outside those platforms. It is a specialist tool, not a replacement for news.
5. Polyletter: if you want topics, not hits
This is where it gets a little self-promotional, but this is exactly why I built Polyletter.
The difference to every tool above: you do not pick search terms or sources, you pick topics. These topics are called Polys. A Poly is for example "Top DAX Gainers", "Free Games on Steam or Epic" or "Markus Lanz Guests and Topics". Each Poly gives you exactly what it is there for, summarised and put into context instead of a list of links.
All your Polys arrive in one email. Not five, not ten. One.
Back to my Epic Games example: instead of an alert that sends me spam sites, I now get the Poly with the free games. It tells me what is free this week, and if there is nothing, it says exactly that.
Good for: anyone who wants to read once in the morning and be up to date. Markets, gaming, politics, entertainment.
Not good for: tracking your own name. Use Talkwalker for that.
Polyletter is completely free. No trial, no credit card.
Which tool for what
| You want to... | Use |
|---|---|
| monitor your name or your company | Talkwalker Alerts |
| keep half an eye on big news topics | Google News "Following" |
| read ten specific blogs in one place | RSS reader |
| know where Reddit is talking about you | F5Bot |
| get your topics in one email every morning | Polyletter |
Honestly, most people do not need one tool, they need two. One for mentions, one for topics. Google Alerts tries to do both and does both only halfway.
My suggestion for tonight
Open google.com/alerts and look at which alerts you still have. For each one, ask yourself: did I get anything useful out of this in the last four weeks?
If not, delete it. If it is about a name, move it to Talkwalker. If it is about a topic, check whether there is a Poly for it.
And if you would rather read proper newsletters about your topics, the Newsletter Finder finds the right ones for you in two minutes.
