Web Page Monitoring - The Inner Workings of Content Monitoring Tools and Services

Background

A wealth of content is available on the Web.

With the aid of the most dominant search engines like Google, Microsoft Live or Yahoo, most Internet users have mastered content discovery.

On the other hand, keeping up to date with content updates is a challenge for most Internet users that do not use ChangeDetect.com

Some users have turned to "RSS feeds" which are slowly increasing in popularity. In addition, some websites have deployed proprietary content update alert technology, but not all users are interested in managing the complexity of new technology like RSS feeds. Others do not want to invest precious resources learning yet another update notification service that only applies to a particular website.

These days, everyone can name their favorite website and most people are comfortable with using e-mail services. RSS technology, however, is still not widely understood and/or adopted. In addition, most on-site update notification implementations are firmly under the control of the website owner's webmaster.

Power in the hands of only the site's webmaster often translates into fewer options for the casual Internet user. As such, most Internet users demand a simple means of tracking the "hidden" web, which is often times considered valuable content accessible only after entering a username and password.

Similarly, many corporate users have a business need for website change notification including monitoring sensitive content for any web-enabled content up to and including (1) new marketing announcements for a competitor, (2) the latest industry news and/or (3) joint venture partnerships between 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 it is many a webmaster standing in the way of the business needs of organizational "outsiders" who demand an simple 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.

How Web Page Monitoring Works

Definition: Web Page Monitoring is an online service that saves a subscribers favorite web pages, periodically monitors them for changes and sends an alert by e-mail with the changes included in the notification.

There are two approaches taken by web page monitoring providers.

* Download software
* Online web services

Of the two delivery options, online web page monitoring services are more flexible and easier to use. This is because, with an online solution, new features can easily be added to the system in real time thereby avoiding user inconveniences around downloading frequent software updates and/or software "patches" to fix security holes.

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 online web page monitoring, you also do not have to take extra steps to download software "patches" and security updates. Because there is no such thing with an online web service...

Benefits

Web Page Monitoring: Service Benefits

Top 10 reasons why you need a web page monitoring solution today!

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. Leverage a unique, self-healing technical implementation for proactive web page change tracking that consistently delivers results that other services are unable to match
9. Collaborate with content monitoring experts offering premium web page monitoring services
10. Work anywhere as you work online...

Web Page Monitoring: Business Case

Web users from all walks of life use 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

TIP: The most popular web page monitoring solution features content changes with color coded highlights, often in red and green. Red is used for removed content while green is often used for recently added content.

Most popular web page monitoring solution: http://www.changedetect.com/

Janice Farley is a writer for the most popular web page monitoring service ChangeDetect - http://www.changedetect.com/ . Signup for your free trial account.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/strategic-planning-articles/web-page-monitoring-the-inner-workings-of-content-monitoring-tools-and-services-1279880.html

---

Orignal From: Web Page Monitoring - The Inner Workings of Content Monitoring Tools and Services