[Forum] Google Alerts do not work with my site

[CharlesDdotnet]

I have Google Spiders on my Forum http://www.charlesd.net regularly. However, I have Alerts set up with Google Alerts to identify various stock posts on my forum, blog and main site. However, even though the Google Spiders are regularly looking at my content the NEVER alert me to new posts.

For instance, I have an Alert set up with Google Alerts for: Quepasa.com and QPSA, these are names for the company and the stock ticker symbol of a company on my forum. I regularly post on this forum and even use those Alerts exactly as I have them set up in Google Alerts. However, I never get an alert.

Can someone point me in the right direction on how to fix this?

Is there a setting somewhere in vBulletin that turns off the ability of these spiders to see the content?

Thanks in advance

[Loco.M]

As long as the post are viewable by guest, you shouldn't need to do anything for google.
It might be time to get a more dependable alerting system though.

[CharlesDdotnet]

Thanks for the reply Loco.M. The problem is that my site has been up for several months now and the problem persists. The site is viewable by guests and members but the Alerts are not picked up.

I expect Google Alerts to see a post, periodically (I don't expect to get an alert for every post), and then send me an email about that post because of the key word used. However, that never happens. I know my Alerts are set up properly in Google Alerts because I get Alerts constantly but from websites other than mine. It seems as if there is a vBulletin setting that must allow the Google Spider to crawl my website but for some reason the Crawler cannot see the information. That's the only thing I can figure but I cannot find anything in the vBulletin documentation that says such a tool exists.

Very frustrating.

[Loco.M]

like I said, I would go with a better alerting service.
google alerts is free and there is a reason for that..
there are much much better paid alternatives that will give you instant alerts

ps.. if guest can see the content, the google spider will be able to as well, unless you have it commented out via robots.txt file.

[CharlesDdotnet]

I mainly am just trying to see if my site is getting notoriety and Marketing via this type of Alert. I don't plan to pay for the alerts just want to make sure everything works properly and because these Alerts from Google do not take place it tells me that there is something wrong with my site. I am looking to "repair" that problem so that Google Alerts sees my and my member's posts and distributes them to the Web. Not looking to pay for a service.

[Ramsesx]

Maybe I'm wrong but isn't google alert only for special (not all websites) news sites, blogs or something similar?

[CharlesDdotnet]

I know it works with bulletin sites because I get Google Alerts from several of them. That is why it is frustrating thT it won't work on mine.