Want to know when prices drop at shopping sites? When someone posts a new message in a forum? When your favorite website updates that is not offering an RSS feed? All of these usage scenarios and many more cry for programs that can monitor website changes. What should a program that monitors website updates come with? It should obviously check the website in intervals and compare the active state with a previous state of the website. The website updates should then be announced to the computer user. Optional nice to have features for website monitors are highlighting changes on the websites, abilities to ignore minor website changes (e.g. date and time that are changing every minute) or logging functionality.
The following list contains five tools for monitoring websites. Three of the tools are Firefox add-ons, one is a online service and the last a software program for the Windows operating system. We encourage readers to add additional tools (should be a free website monitor software, service or add-on) in the comments.
Check 4 Change
Check 4 Change is a Firefox add-on. It is probably the most basic tools to monitor websites that are reviewed in this article. The user can select text on websites and open the Check 4 Change context menu after right-clicking. It is there possible to define the interval for monitoring the website changes. Website Updates are then displayed in the tab of the website that is being monitored. This outlines one of the biggest weaknesses of this add-on. The website has to be open to be monitored by the Firefox add-on.
A few options are provided by the add-on. It is possible to change the intervals and configure several notification options that include playing sounds, popups or bringing the window to the front. The add-on is best used for monitoring websites that require authentication. It could for example be interesting for monitoring web email accounts.
Update Scanner
Update Scanner uses a different approach than Check 4 Change. The program will automatically monitor the complete website for changes with the option to ignore numbers and minor changes. Another benefit of using this website monitor is that the websites that are monitored do not have to be open for it to perform the update checks.
The interval of the checks for website changes is set to once a day by default. This value can be changed to a minimum of every 5 minutes or set to manual scan on the other end of the scale. The add-on will place an icon in the Firefox status bar. A left-click on that icon will open a sidebar that is displaying all websites that are monitored by the add-on. This sidebar contains buttons to perform a manual scan, open one of the monitored websites and to access the preferences of the add-on that allow the user to configure notifications.
Available are sound and popup notifications.
Site Delta
Site Delta is the third (and last) Firefox add-on for monitoring websites. The add-on is a little bit confusing at the beginning as there is no apparent way to add websites that should be monitored to it. The add-on begins to monitor websites for changes if the user presses its icon in the Firefox status bar. The active url will then be added to the list of pages that are monitored by the add-on. The icon will glow green if the active website is monitored by it. A right-click opens a context menu that can be used to configure the monitoring in detail.
Users can configure the scan options in two tabs. The add-on will by default check for text and image changes. It is furthermore possible to ignore case or numbers and to create a backup copy of the page whenever changes are recognized.
The when to scan tab can be used to configure the intervals of the scans. It is possible to set a specific frequency or let the add-on handle it. It seems to use an algorithm that reduces the checks if the website that is monitored is not updated frequently.
Change Detection
Change Detection is a free online service that can monitor websites for changes. An account is required before websites can be monitored by the service. The website url and an email address are provided in the first step of the process. The service will then try to scan the website. If the scan is successful step 2 is displayed.
The notifications and type of changes to trigger notifications can be configured in the second step. Notifications can either be provided by sending emails to an email account or by offering an RSS feed that is being updated with website changes.
It is possible to configure the online monitoring service to only send out notifications if sizable changes have happened on the monitored websites. It is furthermore possible to define text that should trigger notifications (either if it is added or removed from the page which could be interesting for link building purposes).
WebMon
WebMon is the only software program in this review that can be used to monitor websites. The website monitoring software has a few advantages over the Firefox add-ons. It can be run in the background even if all web browser windows are closed. The Firefox add-ons can only perform checks for updated websites if the web browser is running.
The program comes with an easy to use interface. It begins by adding an url to the program. Any url that is currently in the Windows clipboard will automatically be pasted into the form right away. It is then possible to configure the intervals of the checks using the minutes, hours and days slider in the interface. The process is complete if everything on the page should be monitored. Users who want to specify certain text or elements on a website can do so by clicking on the “specify content for check” button in the configuration window.
It basically allows the user to specify the range of content on a website that should be included in the checks. The website monitoring software notifies the user with popup alerts or sounds. It can furthermore run a command if an update is found.
Many additional options are provided that include proxy server support, logging or to import and export the list of monitored websites.
Verdict
The right website monitoring software, add-on or service depends highly on the usage scenario. Users who work with their web browser all the time might prefer the add-on solution to monitor website changes. The online service on the other hand will monitor websites remotely so that the computer system of the user does not need to be turned on at all to monitor changes (could be send to a smartphone per example).
The website monitoring software on the other hand is the most flexible tool that provides options to execute commands if changes have been detected.
Which do you prefer?
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they could use a function to only an update if there is a “significant” update (i.e. not a visitor counter or a banner updating)
Another add-on that monitors web changes is Alertbox, which is currently an experimental add-on. It’s a bit bare-bones, but it works nicely for me. SiteDelta seems to be the most advanced of the 3 Firefox Add-ons, but it constantly gives me false positives, so I can’t use it at all. I use a mix of UpdateScanner and Alertbox instead, depending on the way the website I want to monitor is set up.
Will try out Webmon. Thanks for the heads-up!
The free online service for monitoring webpages that I use for years now is www.whatchthatpage.com.
One of my personal favorites is http://www.watchthatpage.com/
I have been using this service for years now, and they suit my needs 100%.
Thanks martin, i test website for a living and this little guide will no doubt be helpful in the future.
Cheers
Using Webmon for more than 5 years. Tried a few other Webmon-style programs – but none was so functional.
I’m still undecided about AlertBox.
I do like that I can view all updates at once and in one page and decide on whether or not to load the links in tabs as opposed to kind of being nagged to death by Update Scanner. But for now Update Scanner is probably my most frequently used add-on and I like it overall.
Thanks to it, I don’t even use or need a feed reader any longer,
FYI
You can create a bookmark (and keyword) as an alternative to load the AlertBox page
chrome://alertbox/content/inbox
Nice post. This will be very helpful since I want to run a business soon :D….thanks for the tips.
+1 For watchthatpage. Run by nice guys to.
The website I need to monitor has 3 screens:
1 – enter an ID and password to sign-on
2- select a link
3-contains the info I need (a list of job postings)
Do any of these tools accommodate or do you know any?
Joe the problem is the sign in. What you could try is to add the username and password in front of the url that you want to monitor, e.g. http://username:password@www.ghacks.net/ I do not think that any software can check dynamic pages though.
Try Follow2 lite :
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13020
The Follow2 Add-on for Firefox is a Site Update Notifier which allows you to get on-line updated information from your favorite sites, blogs, forums and more.
Hello,
do you know some clever solution for problems with SiteDelta described on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitedelta
thanks
re: watchthatpage
I have been using it since its fruition, a bug is it doesn’t monitor https sites very well. They have emailed they are working on it, but it has been about 10 months that they have been doing so. I have gone looking for another service for https and found this. Changedetection has been perfect. Thank you :)
Here’s a new tool that can monitor html, rss, rdf, atom and json (facebook graph pages):
http://informant.se
Results are available as email, rss and sms.
Webmon hasn’t been updated for a long time. Anything that’s kept up-to-date with similar functionality (and also freeware)?
We have just released a new service for monitoring all or part of a website for content changes
WebAlertPro.com
If anyone is would like a free 8 week trial please email me at and I’d be delighted to get you set up.
If anyone is would like a free 8 week trial please email me at joel_at_su3analytics_dot_com and I’d be delighted to get you set up
Now opera has a new addon to monitor websites.
https://addons.opera.com/addons/extensions/details/websitemonitor/0.1.1/?display=en
Here how it works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2AwZ9IkDMw
For the iPhone you can monitor and track web content changes with:
http://www.dasping.com/
As it is a mobile solution, you are informed wherever you are, and you can get updates every minute if you want.
Hi – Femtoo – (http://femtoo.com) has been able to do this for some months now. But Femtoo also has these key features:
- Monitor particular parts of a page
- Create your own RSS page for your trackers
- Parse data and check for particular conditions (share price hit a certain amount etc)
- Premium accounts can create ‘low latency’ trackers for critical monitoring applications
- Receive notifications via email, Instant Messenger and soon SMS (I think)
- Add a ‘widget’ to any page to allow people to ‘subscribe’ to a ‘tracker’
- It uses the amazing cQuery (http://cquery.com) Server-side CSS Content Selection Engine
- You can publish ‘trackers’ to the ‘Tracker Library’ and anybody can subscribe