I want to be alerted when there's a change to a web page
What tools are there so that I could be alerted when there's a change to a web page.
I'd like to receive instant notification.
Or as close as possible.
Visualping.io is TOO EXPENSIVE for constant monitoring. They just raised the prices exorbitantly.
Web DevelopmentInternet MarketingWeb Languages and StandardsMicrosoft DevelopmentWeb Applications
Morgan:
BAD NEWS. That app is merging with the now insanely expensive Visual Ping.io. and clicking the link will take you to Visualping.io.
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William Peck
Morgan C
Bummer! I had not realized that. Thanks for pointing that out.
brothertruffle880
ASKER
VisualPing.io jacked up their rates MASSIVELY!!! Apparently, they're the only ones now providing this service.
Ray Paseur
Their pricing seems to be in the range of a cup of coffee or a restaurant meal, which is hardly what I would call "massive," but that aside, what site(s) do you want to monitor? The reason I ask is because different technologies will require different monitoring techniques.
One simple way you can do this sort of thing is with a message digest. Simply read the page and take the PHP md5() checksum of the parts you want to monitor. This may work well for static pages that are not timestamped. If your pages change frequently but without any meaningful changes in content, then the visualping.io algorithms may be worth the value proposition to help avoid false positives. Another possible issue would be the pages that are loaded via AJAX requests, where the valuable material in the web page is not present in the HTML but is built dynamically and inserted by JavaScript. Screen "scrapers" will see only the HTML document, not the visual representation that appears on the client browser.
So please tell us a little more about what you're really looking for, and maybe we can suggest some more concrete ideas.
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brothertruffle880
ASKER
Hi Ray:
Yes. You correct. per "check" it's not expensive. But I'm asking for a "check" every five minutes. So, when I use VisualPing.io every five minutes from 9 AM to 10 PM (hours of their registrar) seven days a week. That's when it adds up. Another upset is that they hiked their prices without any warning about a month ago.
Here's an example of someone who scrapes their Kickstarter campaign page and sounds an air horn every time the donation value changes.