Are Google Alerts Dying?

In the wake of Google's killing of Google Reader, power users now have a new fear: Are Google Alerts next?

Google Alerts is a service that allows users to receive email notifications of updated Google results for a search query or keyword. This lets users easily monitor an ongoing news story or be alerted of new stories mentioning a brand or individual. Google Alerts are actively used by marketers, social media managers, publicists, journalists and researchers. It's one of Google's oldest tools, and it's also one of the most useful — at least, when it works.

For the last few months, users have complained about the unreliable state of Google Alerts. Last month, Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan wrote about Google Alerts in a blog post entitled Google Alerts: Why Aren't You Working?. Sullivan's issue at the time was that Google Alerts was no longer notifying him about all of the various mentions across search, news and blogs for his subscribed keywords.