Page Change Monitor
One page that matters, watched closely. Not a list of pages that moved, but the old wording and the new wording side by side, and the date the change happened.
Availability
This is not available yet
Page monitoring is being built into TagPipes and cannot be turned on today. This page sets out what watching a single page well involves, because that is the part worth getting right before anything ships.
There is nothing to run here. The form below is the whole mechanism for hearing when it opens.
Watching one page is a different job
Watching thirty pages is a summary problem. You want a short list, once a day, of which ones moved, and you will go and look at the ones that matter.
Watching one page is an evidence problem. You already know the page is important, which is why you are watching it. What you want is not notification that something happened. It is the sentence that changed, what it used to say, and when it stopped saying it. Often the reason you are watching is that somebody will eventually ask you exactly that question.
The pages people watch this way are fairly consistent: a pricing page, a competitor's, a supplier's specification, a terms or policy page, a regulator or standards page, or a single high-value landing page that campaigns depend on.
What should count as a change
Most page monitoring is abandoned within a month, and this table is why. Everything in the second column changes on every single load.
| Worth an alert | Not worth an alert | Depends entirely on the page |
|---|---|---|
| A price, a rate or a number changing | A timestamp, a clock or a relative date | A stock or availability indicator |
| Wording in a policy, a term or a disclosure | A rotating testimonial or a shuffled carousel | A blog feed or a related-articles block |
| A call to action appearing, changing or disappearing | A session token or a cache-busting parameter in the markup | A promotional banner |
| A form, a field or a required step changing | Advertising, which is different for every visitor | A social proof counter |
| The page failing to render, or emptying | Whitespace and markup reformatting from a build | A comment count |
This is why a monitor needs somewhere to say what to ignore. A tool that treats every difference as a change is technically correct and gets muted in a fortnight, which makes it worth nothing.
What a useful page alert contains
Written as intent, because it is. This page becomes plain description when it ships.
Before and after
The old text and the new text together. An alert that only says the page changed makes you do the comparison yourself, which is the work you were trying to hand over.
When it happened
Bounded by the checks either side of it. The narrower the window, the more useful, which is most of the argument for checking more often.
A record of how it looked
A picture of the page as it was is more convincing than any description of it, particularly to somebody who was not watching at the time.
Where on the page
A long page changes in one place. Being pointed at the section beats being handed the whole document twice.
History, not just the last change
The second time a page changes, the first change becomes context. A monitor that only keeps the latest comparison throws that away.
One notification
Where you will see it, when something actually changed. Not a daily confirmation that nothing did.
How often to check one page
More often is not better. It is more expensive, noisier, and past a point it tells you nothing extra.
1. Daily, for most pages
Policies, terms, pricing and supplier specifications change a handful of times a year. A daily check bounds the change to a day, which is almost always tight enough to act on.
2. Hourly, when the timing itself matters
Availability, stock, rates and anything you would react to the same day. Worth the extra noise only when you would genuinely do something differently at ten in the morning than at four in the afternoon.
3. Around events you already know about
A competitor's announcement, a regulatory deadline, a pricing review. Tightening the cadence for a fortnight and relaxing it again is often better than watching hard all year.
4. Slower than you first want
The common mistake is starting hourly on everything, getting buried, and turning the whole thing off. Start daily and speed up the one page that turns out to need it.
Frequently asked questions
Tell me when page monitoring is ready
One email when it is available to use. No newsletter, no drip sequence, and we will not pass your address on.
More on page change monitoring
Watching a set of pages across a site, and how a change is detected in the first place.
What TagPipes does today
Page monitoring is not part of the product yet. Tagging automation, measurement, server-side events, consent management and privacy tooling are, and the trial gives you all of them.
See the TagPipes platformFree 14-day trial. No credit card. This page will change when monitoring ships.