Website Change Monitor | Page Diff Alerts

Open Input (leave defaults → Start)

Paid first run ≈ USD 0 for baseline_only (no change events). Digest OFF. Open Console Input (deep link above) and run this JSON.

{
  "targets": [
    {
      "name": "Example page",
      "url": "https://example.com/",
      "cssSelector": "",
      "ignoreSelectors": []
    }
  ],
  "maxTargets": 1,
  "initialRunMode": "baseline_only",
  "emitSnapshots": false,
  "generateDigest": false,
  "emitUnchanged": false,
  "stripDates": true,
  "maxDiffSegments": 3,
  "snapshotKey": "example-watch",
  "maxChargeUsd": 0.1,
  "dryRun": false
}

Optional first-observation trial (emit_backfill, digest OFF) ≈ USD 0.08 for one change row.

Competitive intelligence, product operations, and web teams use this Actor to track approved public pages. Input public URLs with optional CSS focus and noise filters. Get source-linked added/removed text, change alerts, snapshots, and portfolio digest reports.

Store Quickstart

The first run stores a free baseline. Schedule the same input to receive rows only when the watched content changes.

{
  "targets": [
    {
      "name": "Competitor pricing",
      "url": "https://example.com/pricing",
      "cssSelector": "main",
      "ignoreSelectors": [".cookie-banner"]
    }
  ],
  "initialRunMode": "baseline_only",
  "generateDigest": true,
  "emitSnapshots": false,
  "emitUnchanged": false,
  "maxDiffSegments": 20,
  "maxChargeUsd": 10,
  "snapshotKey": "competitor-pricing",
  "dryRun": false
}

An unchanged run writes zero dataset rows and creates zero event charges.

Use with Apify MCP

Exact actor: taroyamada/url-change-watch-scraper

Sample input JSON:

{
  "targets": [
    {
      "name": "Example page",
      "url": "https://example.com/",
      "cssSelector": "",
      "ignoreSelectors": []
    }
  ],
  "maxTargets": 1,
  "initialRunMode": "baseline_only",
  "emitSnapshots": false,
  "generateDigest": false,
  "emitUnchanged": false,
  "stripDates": true,
  "maxDiffSegments": 3,
  "snapshotKey": "example-watch",
  "maxChargeUsd": 0.1,
  "dryRun": false
}

Run the next report

• Audit content, headings, metadata, and crawlability with Site QA Content Report.
• Compare pricing, changelogs, release notes, and status pages with SaaS Pricing & Changelog Battlecard.
• Run a multi-site technical regression audit with Technical SEO & AI Crawler Audit.

Input examples

Pricing-page watch

{
  "targets": [
    {
      "name": "Pricing",
      "url": "https://example.com/pricing",
      "cssSelector": "main",
      "ignoreSelectors": [".last-updated"]
    }
  ],
  "initialRunMode": "baseline_only",
  "stripDates": true,
  "generateDigest": true,
  "maxChargeUsd": 10,
  "snapshotKey": "pricing-watch",
  "dryRun": false
}

Product documentation watch

{
  "targets": [
    {
      "name": "API changelog",
      "url": "https://example.com/changelog",
      "cssSelector": "article",
      "ignoreSelectors": []
    },
    {
      "name": "API limits",
      "url": "https://example.com/docs/limits",
      "cssSelector": "main",
      "ignoreSelectors": ["nav"]
    }
  ],
  "initialRunMode": "baseline_only",
  "stripDates": false,
  "stripVolatileNumbers": false,
  "generateDigest": true,
  "maxDiffSegments": 30,
  "maxChargeUsd": 10,
  "snapshotKey": "api-docs-watch",
  "dryRun": false
}

Paid first-observation trial

Use emit_backfill only when you explicitly want the current page captured as the first change row.

{
  "targets": [
    {
      "name": "Terms page",
      "url": "https://example.com/terms",
      "cssSelector": "main",
      "ignoreSelectors": []
    }
  ],
  "initialRunMode": "emit_backfill",
  "generateDigest": false,
  "emitSnapshots": false,
  "maxChargeUsd": 0.1,
  "snapshotKey": "terms-trial",
  "dryRun": false
}

Sample output

{
  "rowType": "url_change",
  "billingEventName": "url-change-detected",
  "targetName": "Competitor pricing",
  "sourceUrl": "https://example.com/pricing",
  "changeKind": "content_hash_diff",
  "addedSegments": ["The Pro plan now includes priority support."],
  "removedSegments": ["The Pro plan includes standard support."],
  "addedSegmentCount": 1,
  "removedSegmentCount": 1,
  "changeRatio": 0.25,
  "contentHash": "bcf38e4a58839f6c7686c3f1",
  "previousContentHash": "dba4a91988d5ed0d5f3dbd31",
  "checkedAt": "2026-07-27T01:00:00.000Z"
}

Each change row includes the source URL, final URL, HTTP status, current and previous hashes, bounded added/removed text segments, a change ratio, and a stable key. Digest rows summarize all changed targets in the run.

Related Actors

• SaaS Pricing Tracker
• SaaS Pricing Competitor Monitor
• SaaS Pricing Changelog Battlecard

Pricing

Event	Price	Delivered when
url-change-detected	$0.08	A normalized watched region changes, or an explicit backfill is requested
url-snapshot	$0.02	emitSnapshots is enabled and a public page is fetched successfully
change-digest-report	$5.00	At least one change exists and generateDigest is enabled

maxChargeUsd is checked before delivery. The Actor fails before pushing billable rows if the configured output would exceed the buyer-approved cap.

Change controls

• cssSelector limits the watched region to a simple ID, class, or tag selector.
• ignoreSelectors removes known noisy regions.
• stripDates removes common timestamps before hashing.
• stripVolatileNumbers normalizes long counters.
• maxDiffSegments bounds the added and removed text included in each row.
• snapshotKey keeps recurring watches isolated.

Compliance and limitations

• Public HTTP(S) pages supplied by the buyer only.
• Private networks, metadata endpoints, non-HTTP URLs, disallowed robots paths, access challenges, and login walls fail closed.
• Redirect count, response size, and request time are bounded.
• Results are source-linked observations and do not determine legal, security, compliance, or financial conclusions.
• Lightweight CSS focus is not a full browser selector engine, and text diffs do not represent pixel-level layout changes.

See also

• Site QA Content Report
• SaaS Pricing & Changelog Battlecard
• Technical SEO & AI Crawler Audit