Content Change Monitoring

Overview

Content Change Monitoring tracks modifications to web page content over time. The system takes snapshots of specified URLs, compares them against previous versions, and alerts you when significant changes are detected.

Key Capabilities:

• Monitor any URL (your domains or competitors)
• Detect text changes, additions, and deletions
• Calculate similarity scores (percentage changed)
• Visual diff highlighting (shows exactly what changed)
• Configurable sensitivity (ignore minor changes vs alert on everything)
• Historical snapshots (view content at any point in time)

How It Works

1. Snapshot Capture

The system fetches the URL and extracts visible text content (excluding HTML tags, scripts, styles). Each snapshot stores:

• Content Hash: SHA-256 hash of text for fast comparison
• Full Text: Raw text content (up to 500KB)
• Word Count: Total words on page
• Timestamp: When snapshot was taken

2. Change Detection Algorithm

When a new snapshot is captured, the system:

1. Compares hash to previous snapshot
2. If hash differs, runs Levenshtein distance algorithm to calculate similarity
3. Generates visual diff (line-by-line comparison)
4. Determines if change is "significant" based on threshold
5. If significant, triggers alert and logs event

3. Noise Filtering

To avoid false positives from dynamic content, the system ignores:

• Timestamps and dates (e.g., "Updated on Feb 10, 2026")
• View/like counters (e.g., "1,234 views")
• Ad content (detected via common ad container IDs)
• Live chat widgets
• Cookie banners and consent notices

Configure additional ignore patterns in Settings → Content Monitoring → Ignore Patterns.

Setup & Configuration

Step 1: Add URL to Monitor

1. Go to Domain Tracker
2. Select a domain
3. Click Content Monitoring tab
4. Click "Add URL"
5. Enter full URL (e.g., https://example.com/pricing)
6. Choose check frequency: Hourly | Every 6 hours | Daily | Weekly
7. Set sensitivity threshold (default: 95%)

Step 2: Initial Baseline

The first snapshot is captured immediately and serves as the baseline. No alerts are triggered for the initial snapshot. Subsequent snapshots are compared against this baseline (or the most recent approved snapshot).

Step 3: Configure Alerts

Choose how to be notified of changes:

Configure alert methods in Alert Rules.

Step 4: Review Dashboard

The Content Monitoring dashboard shows:

• Active Monitors: List of URLs being tracked
• Recent Changes: Timeline of detected modifications
• Change Frequency: How often each URL changes (helps optimize check intervals)
• Snapshot History: Browse past versions (up to 90 days retained)

Interpreting Results

Viewing Diffs

When a change is detected, click "View Diff" to see a side-by-side comparison:

• Red highlights = Deleted text
• Green highlights = Added text
• Unchanged text appears in gray

Change Severity Levels

Approving Changes

If a change is expected (e.g., you updated your own site), click "Approve & Set as Baseline". Future snapshots will compare against this approved version instead of the original baseline.

Common Use Cases

Best Practices

✅ DO:

• Start with low-traffic pages to test sensitivity settings (avoid alert fatigue)
• Monitor full URLs (https://example.com/pricing) not just domains
• Use descriptive labels for monitors (e.g., "Competitor A Pricing Page" not "https://...")
• Export diffs for important changes (create paper trail)
• Review false positives weekly and add ignore patterns
• Combine with Alert Rules for conditional notifications

❌ DON'T:

• Monitor pages with constantly changing content (news homepages, stock tickers) — high false positive rate
• Set check frequency too high for static pages (wastes credits)
• Ignore major changes without investigating (could be security breach)
• Monitor login-walled content (system can't access, will fail)
• Use default sensitivity (95%) for marketing pages (too sensitive) — lower to 85% for copy-heavy pages

Advanced: API Integration

Trigger snapshots programmatically via API for CI/CD integration:

curl -X POST https://elasticdomain.com/api/tools/domain-tracker/content-monitor \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "action": "snapshot",
    "url": "https://example.com/pricing"
  }'

See API Key Management for authentication details.