Web Page Monitoring

By Author: Janice Farley
Total Articles: 1
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Backgrounder

A wealth of content is available on the Web.

With the aid of the dominant search engines like Google, or Yahoo, many an Internet user has mastered content discovery.

It is no surprise that keeping up-to-date with periodically changing content is quite a challenge for Internet users that do not use ChangeDetect.com.

Sure there are "RSS feeds" and many web sites today offer proprietary update notification services, but not everyone wants to deal with complicated web technology such as RSS or yet another content change notification service that is specific to a particular website. Besides not every web site is deployed with an RSS feed. Furthermore most on-site content change notification services are controlled by the webmaster which means less choice for Internet users.

As such, most Internet surfers prefer a simple means to track the hidden web or sensitive content for most any web-enabled content. This is likely to be at odds with the goals of a webmaster who may not want Internet visitors to track updates to certain areas of the website he administers.
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... br />Therefore Internet users find value in centralizing web page monitoring and update notification with a single, simple third-party service.

Similarly, many corporate users have business needs for website change notification including tracking sensitive content for any web-enabled content including (1) new marketing announcements for competitors, (2) industry news releases and (3) joint venture partnerships and other collaborations amongst competitors.

Timely business information about an organization comes easily to insiders but those on the outside want and need much of the same information as insiders. In both cases, the information delivery must also be in as timely a manner as possible.

However the typical goals and directives given to a webmaster are not likely to be harmonious with the business needs of organizational "outsiders" who demand an easy solution to monitor changes specific to certain areas of the webmaster's public website.

Internet users value centralizing content monitoring and change notification with one, simple hosted solution.

Web Page Monitoring: How It Works

Definition: Web Page Monitoring is a service that saves a user's favorite web content, monitors it for change and sends an e-mail alert with the changes included in the notification.

There are two delivery approaches taken by web page monitoring vendors.

* Download software

* Online web services

Of the two web page monitoring delivery channels, online web page monitoring services are far superior because there is nothing to download and new features can easily be added to the service in real time.

Also, downloading and installing software onto a laptop or workstation can also be a virus risk. Most large corporations have stringent policies against downloading/installing unknown and/or unproven software onto their personal computers and corporate networks.

With an online web page monitoring tool, the solution operates safely as a secure Web service that does not require any download software to run on your computer.

Benefits of Web Page Monitoring

Benefits

Top 10 reasons why Busy Executives leverage a web page monitoring solution

1. Be the first to know about relevant content changes to the web content that interests you the most

2. Automatically, track any web-enabled content for updates

3. Monitor high value content hidden behind password protected web pages

4. Track changes to dynamic web searches and HTML forms

5. Use custom cookies to further unlock the hidden web to content monitoring

6. Avoid computer viruses because there is nothing to download when you use a web service

7. Monitor sensitive content such as a competitor's website, press releases or online price changes -- all done confidentially and privately from the web page monitoring service's (anonymous third-party) proxy servers

8. Capitalize on a state-of-the-art, self-healing system for proactive web page update tracking and notification which consistently delivers results that other web services are unable to duplicate

9. Collaborate with content monitoring experts offering premium web page monitoring services

10. Work online from anywhere...

Business Case

Web users from all walks of life leverage web page monitoring services to track their favorite content for changes.

* Sales Professionals

* Business Executives

* Intellectual Property Attorneys

* Newsletter Publishers

* Librarians and Information Researchers

* Software Developers

* Software Buyers

* Message Board Subscribers

* Job Seekers

HINT: The top web page monitoring solutions feature content changes with color coded highlighting, usually in red and green. Red for removed content and green for newly added content changes.

Best Web Page Monitoring Resource: http://www.changedetect.com/
J. Farley is an author for the most popular web page monitoring service ChangeDetect - http://www.changedetect.com/ . Signup for your free 30 day trial account.