For businesses that run online, keeping a handle on everything seems impossible. You cannot control who visits your website, what kind of ways people are using to fool/break the system, and what customers are saying about it. What you can control (monitor), however, is the content included in the website, be it the code files themselves, the pages and posts, the images and other files stored on the server, and so on. Collectively, let’s call them “website changes.” Now the question is, should you bother?
Why website changes matter
It’s a surprise that business owners don’t think of website changes more often, even for content-driven websites, where content is make-or-break for the business. Why? Perhaps they’ve been conditioned into thinking that this is out of reach; that maybe it’s not possible, or is it so complicated that the resources spent are not worth it? I’d like to argue that all these conclusions are misguided. When a website changes, it can mean a lot of very important things.
Security attacks
Almost all web applications store some configuration data in their environment or config files (WordPress users will recognize the wp-config.php file). Changes to these files, if not intentional, can mean a security compromise, the result being stolen information, or worse, the information being fed from a corrupted source. This is kind of what happens in a DNS-poisoning attack, except that this time the server will be compromised, and the attack will likely go unnoticed. This is crucial for WordPress websites, where the attacker relies on changing some files that are important and somehow made accessible. All in all, if you didn’t make any changes to your site’s content and files and yet something changed, it’s an alarm bell.
Objectionable content
For sites that depend on user-generated content, the risk is even greater. It’s possible that some random user (or even a competitor!) has posted profane or copyrighted content on your website, landing you into potential trouble. Even if your website doesn’t rely on user-generated content, it’s possible for someone to make a change and add/remove the content in a way that is troublesome for your business operations. For instance, how can you be sure that someone hasn’t accidentally removed your privacy policy page, which is so important for GDPR compliance? Or maybe the new content writer has used a term that is politically incorrect and must be avoided in your industry. ? The applications of monitoring changes are unlimited, depending on what your areas of concern are. For instance, you can use content change monitoring in the following situations:
Website defacementMissing or broken page elementsUnplanned code changes (HTML or otherwise)Competition monitoringNews monitoring (useful for your PR department)
Once you’re aware of what’s at stake, it’s time to take action — with the help of one of the tools we’re going to discuss next.
Versionista
Versionista is a “simple, powerful SaaS solution” for all your change monitoring needs. It works exceptionally well for those who want to monitor at scale. It can be used to crawl your website pages or simply as a discovery tool for new content. What impressed me most was their detailed reporting. Check out some screenshots: And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Check out Versionista now.
Fluxguard
Monitoring of publicly visible content and files is fine, but what if your content is locked behind a login form? Well, Fluxguard addresses these concerns. Thanks to its use of state-of-the-art tools like Headless Chrome and Puppeteer, Fluxguard can submit login forms and interact with any portion of a page easily. You can also run Google Lighthouse audits to your entire site. Some awesome features of Fluxguard are:
Tracking of full network activityCookie tracking for UX and complianceArchives for demonstrating historical complianceAdvanced filters and transformationsElaborate, on-page visual comparisons
Visualping
I’m a fan of simplicity and minimalism, so I can’t ignore a solution that is laser-focused. The same goes for Visualping if you’re looking for simple page-level monitoring and want dead a simple pricing model. Why would you use a service that is ridiculously simple? Well, I looked around on their website and found some brilliant applications:
Scanning government sites for job vacanciesMonitoring university sites for exam resultsChecking for new reviews for your favorite restaurant on Yelp, etc.Keeping a check on vendors for sneaky price changes ??
All in all, it goes on to show that technology is limited in its capabilities but unlimited in its applications. 🙂
ContentKing
Highly rated on sites like Product Hunt, ContentKing gives you real-time SEO auditing and content tracking without charging an arm and a leg. It’s cloud-based and monitors your web properties all day every day. You get practical tasks and insights regarding your website’s latest happenings, all thanks to their smart algorithm. This solution also notifies you instantly whenever something breaks on your website. So, basically, it helps you stay on top of issues and malfunctions. Apart from that, you can track all the changes being made to your web properties. Whether those are new, deleted, or redirected, ContentKing captures everything and reports it to you in a seamless manner. You can choose to dissect, export, or do whatever you want with the data it collects. Pricing plans of this solution start from $39/month, but there’s a free trial that you can utilize before any commitment.
Sken.io
Sken.io is another nice offering when it comes to website monitoring. What I found different about this service is that they have a focus on a mobile app and a Chrome extension for alerts. The idea is that we might not always be monitoring our mailbox, or may not want to get spammed! Its features include:
Monitor the whole page or just a section. Or even an element!Advanced time schedulerRemove annoying elements from monitoring (popups, etc.)Chart-style reporting for visually seeing changes in numbers (price, number of reviews, etc.)
The service also claims the “best” web-page rendering in the world, but I’m not sure I can back that up. All said and done, it’s a pretty neat service worth checking out.
Wachete
Monitor single pages or entire portals, that’s the promise of Wachete. Combine this with a historical archive of 6 months, and you have a pretty solid offering for enterprises. Wachete also goes the extra mile when it comes to features. Apart from the usual features offered by other website monitoring tools in the category, it offers:
A REST API for accessing info programmatically.Converts monitored pages to an RSS feed you can subscribe to!?Integration with popular third-party tools like Zapier
Oh, and just in case you’re wondering, Wachete can also crawl pages behind a login form.
ChangeTower
ChangeTower has several features that help you not just monitor changes, but also discover incredible applications in your business. Some of the features offered by ChangeTower are:
Chain conditions together: Add as many conditions to a monitoring rule as you want.Sensitivity settings: You get to decide what the threshold for triggering alerts should be.Word processor-like change tracking: Extensive change reports that look like the changelog from a powerful word processor like Google Docs or Word.Visual snapshots: Visually see what’s happening with the content changes.Multi-user alerts: Alert your whole team or just yourself when the shit hits the fan. 🙂
ChangeTower is a smart, capable offering trusted by names like IBM, Huawei, PWC, Salesforce, and more, so you’re in good company!
Distill.io
For those looking for a comprehensive and neat-looking service, Distill.io is a good option. First, the features that are not so common among the website trackers covered here: chrome extension, mobile app, and monitoring of private pages (including PDFs). And now, the cool stuff:
Integrates with Slack and DiscordWebhooks for custom integrationsImport/export data in many formatsAllows use of custom proxies
All in all, a power-packed offering!
Conclusion
Website monitoring is like one of those things you never knew existed but now can’t live without. Once you see the potential of this simple idea, it’s impossible not to leverage it and make your business better!
