There are several webmaster tools out there. But when it comes to finding out when your competitor makes a change to their website, what tools are great? This is a list of the top 5 best website change monitoring tools that you can use to find exactly how many changes your competition is making within their website.
There are websites out there that offer free change tracking, but most of them require your website to strictly follow their programming. If you want to track your own website’s HTML version easily and efficiently, then the list of the best website change monitoring tools is for you. It offers you different choices of programing language, available platforms, price range and other relevant variables. The list includes only trusted software that does its job perfectly.
Visualping.io
NBC, The Washington Post and Forbes, among others, recommend using Visualping to watch web page changes.
The Wall Street Journal says Visualping comes in handy for monitoring pharmacy, clinic, government and other vaccine-related pages to snag COVID-19 vaccine appointments.
With over 1.5 million users – out of which 83% are Fortune 500 companies – Visualping is the world’s top website change detection and monitoring tool.
Ease of use
Visualping’s user interface is smooth and minimalist, making it easy to use. Folks less familiar with online tech tools will have a substantially easier time with Visualping than most other monitoring tools.
Here’s why.
To use Visualping to monitor website changes, you don’t have to click a slew of buttons on the homepage to find the registration portal, and then several more to actually set up the monitor.
Just paste the URL of the page you want to monitor into the search bar on Visualping’s homepage. Click “Go”, and you’re well on your way there.
The web page loads in Visualping’s viewport, and you’re prompted to customize the monitor: the area of the page you want monitored, frequency of page checks, the specific monitoring mode, and the email address for the alerts.
Then you click “Start Monitoring”, and that’s as tricky as it gets. The user has to confirm the email sent to their inbox to validate the address and make an account password.
Advanced features
But don’t be misled by Visualping’s clean design; many advanced settings are tucked beneath the minimalist interface.
Visualping provides three different monitoring modes for the user to choose from: visual-compare, text-compare and web-compare.
Visual-compare lets you monitor web page pixels. It’s the go-to option for monitoring visual page changes. Upon receiving an alert, users receive a clean, easy-to-read screenshot of the page, with all the changes highlighted for them.
Text-compare monitors a page’s textual changes. It’s best for monitoring pages of dense text, such as changes to a Terms and Conditions Agreement (T&C). Users click the View Changes button at the bottom of the alert to navigate to the page they’re monitoring, with all the textual changes highlighted for them in context.
Web-compare lets you monitor HTML code. When setting up the monitor, you select particular web page elements to be tracked.
The Perform Actions feature lets users instruct Visualping on how to navigate the page to access information they want checked. The features let users automate actions such as filling in a form, selecting from a dropdown menu, clicking a button, etc. It’s a popular feature with monitoring password-protected pages.
Visualping
Visualping is a website monitor software that allows you to analyze various pages with just one click. This tool provides email notification when changes are detected.
Features:
- It offers access to public API as well as custom development work.
- You can review changes in images and basic account settings.
- Automatically alerts website users when any changes are made on the website.
- The browser extension allows you to monitor websites directly from the website.
- It provides intelligent alerts.
Wachete
Wachete has a lot more to offer than other content monitoring tools on this list. What makes it stand out is its ability to monitor password-protected pages as well as dynamic and JavaScript pages.
Moreover, you can track changes on pages that require a click or an input and monitor configured pages from different locations and more.
Surprisingly, you can also monitor specific parts of a web page or a site with sub-pages. Wachete sends instant or summary notifications (per your preference) over email and notifies about changes via its mobile app too.
It collects and stores web content along with change history for up to six months, allowing you to track old pages or changes when required.
You can freely monitor five pages, which suffices everyday users who wish to track product prices and job offers. You can also track the availability of a site, and download all the data as a spreadsheet.
What I like most is its set of REST APIs as well as its feature to create an RSS feed from the content of a page, like a feed of your wishlist products.
Versionista
Overview:
For instant website change detection and prompt alerts, Versionista has carved its niche in the market. For even highly customized and specific requirements, Versionista can provide reliable and comfortable functionalities that can help you monitor website changes. Versionista also stands out for its fast and efficient notification service. When there are changes to the web pages that you are interested in, you get notified on email as well as Slack. For its unique functionalities and robust customer service, Versionista has rightly become a reliable website change detection and notification tool.Free Trial / Free:
- Free
- You can monitor 5 URLs every day for free or 465 checks per month.
Cost:
- Basic plans start from $19/month for 20 URLs.
Monitoring and Tracking:
- Monitor changes for entire sites
- Auto-crawl and monitor changes to key web pages
- Monitor changes to HTML, PDFs, dynamic content
- You can apply default filters for monitoring websites
- Monitor Dynamic web pages
Notification and Change Detection:
- Direct email
- Notification via Slack channel
Bulk Tracking: Yes
Data Retention: Not Disclosed
Custom Crawling Frequency: NoAccessing, sharing and viewing your tracker data:
- Versionista generates monitoring reports for comparing and analyzing tracker data.
Help and Support:
- Email support ( You get a reply within 24 hours)
Integrations:
- No Integrations
Custom Service/Scalable Service:
- Yes
- Minimum crawling frequency: Not disclosed
Additional Features:
- You can download track data into Excel and CSV files.
- It provides wide range of default filters. (like: ignore comments, ignore changes in date and time)
Conclude
A website change monitoring tool is software that provides information about changes made to websites. It can monitor changes for specific parameters, such as if keywords are added or deleted, or an image is modified. A change monitoring system can alert you when a change occurs so you’ll know to investigate the cause.