If you regularly visit web pages looking for new or updated information, you’ll save countless hours by automating the process with software that tracks changes for you — even while you sleep.
Let’s face it — the web is constantly changing, with new content being added and old content being moved or deleted at a pace that even search engines can’t keep up with.
If you have a set of pages that you monitor regularly for new content, software that tracks changes can be a godsend. These programs, variously called “page trackers,” “url monitors,” or other descriptive names, are constantly on the lookout for changes to web pages.
What kinds of pages would you monitor on a regular basis? Well, I’ve got my favorite program, WebSite-Watcher, set up to monitor all of the major search services’ press release pages. I also have it monitoring a number of weblogs that post frequently but on an irregular schedule. You can use them to monitor online forums, auctions, news sites — anything that changes frequently.
Page monitors can also be very useful competitive intelligence tools. In addition to press release pages, you can set up page trackers to notify you whenever new job notices, product updates, or any other kind of information offering potential business intelligence is posted to your competitors’ web sites.
Selecting pages to monitor is easy. Most programs allow you to add the page you’re currently viewing to the list of tracked pages. Many also allow you to import bookmarks.
With most of these services, you specify the kinds of changes you’d like to be notified about. New content? Many of these services highlight new or changed content on copies of the page.
For pages that change frequently, it’s better to check for a new date or timestamp on a web page, to avoid being inundated with alerts. You can also often indicate how frequently would you like to check for changes — anywhere from once a minute to longer intervals, such as a week or month, depending on the available options offered by the page tracking service.
When changes have been detected, the programs will notify you or send you an email alert. For web-based page tracking services, notification will be posted to a custom web page. Some of these services also let your readers sign up for alerts that go out any time you add content to your own web site.
The four web page monitoring services listed below each offer the same basic tracking features. Each also offers unique features that might fit your needs better than the others. Of the four, WebSite-Watcher is the most powerful; however, it is also desktop-based, so lacks the flexibility of the other services, which can be accessed via any Internet connected computer.