web page monitoring

Background

Huge swaths of valuable content have been published to the Web.

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

Not surprisingly however, keeping up-to-date with constantly changing content is quite a challenge for most Internet users.

Of course "RSS feeds" are slowly becoming more popular and individual websites may have deployed proprietary update notification technology, but not all users want to manage the complexities of new technologies 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 webmaster often translates into fewer options for the casual Internet user. As such, most Internet surfers would like to have a simple means of tracking the "hidden" web, which is valuable content accessible only after entering a password.

Similarly, most corporate Internet users have business needs for change monitoring sensitive content for any web-enabled content such as (1) a new product announcement from a competitor, (2) competitive price changes or (3) public disclosures such as executive compensation.

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 web page monitoring and update change notification with one, simple hosted solution.

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 approaches taken by web page monitoring vendors.

Download software
Online web page monitoring services

Of the two, web page monitoring vendor 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, having to download and then install software onto a laptop or workstation can also be a very serious virus risk. Most large corporations have implemented stringent policies against installing unknown and/or unproven software onto their mobile devices and computer networks.

With an online web page monitoring service, the solution runs safely on the Web as a secure service.

Benefits of Web Page Monitoring

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

Be the first to know about relevant content changes to the web content that interests you the most
Automatically, track any web-enabled content for updates
Monitor high value content hidden behind password protected web pages
Track changes to dynamic web searches and HTML forms
Use custom cookies to further unlock the hidden web to content monitoring
Avoid computer viruses because there is nothing to download when you use a web service
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
Leverage a unique, self-healing technical implementation for proactive web page change tracking that consistently delivers results that other services are unable to match
Collaborate with content monitoring experts offering premium web page monitoring services
Work anywhere as you work online...

Web Page Monitoring: 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

TIP: Only the top web page monitoring solution highlights updated content with color-coding in red and green. Red signifies removed content and green is reserved for recently added content.

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web page monitoring

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