# 🔔 Website Change Monitor - Alerts Only On Real Changes (`that_red_bird/website-change-monitor`) Actor

⚡ ~$0.002/check. Watch any page or CSS selector and get a Slack/Discord alert only when something REALLY changes. ✅ Ignores cookie banners, timestamps, tokens and view counters — the noise that makes other change detectors cry wolf.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/that\_red\_bird/website-change-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [mohamed alaya](https://apify.com/that_red_bird) (community)
- **Categories:** Automation, Developer tools, SEO tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per event

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Website Change Monitor

Watch any web page — or one element on it — and get told **only when something really changes**.

Most "change detection" tools fire every single run because pages contain timestamps, session tokens
and view counters that move on their own. This one strips that noise before comparing, so an alert
means an actual edit.

### What it watches

- **Visible text** of a whole page or a section (default)
- A **CSS selector** — one price, one headline, one status badge
- An **attribute** — `href`, `content`, `data-*`
- A **JSON-LD field** — e.g. `offers.price` on a product
- A **meta tag** — `og:title`, `description`
- A **regex** — anything else

### What it ignores on purpose

Timestamps · ISO dates · epoch numbers · CSRF tokens · nonces · session ids · UUIDs · cache-busting
query strings · "3 hours ago" · "1,204 views". Change one of those and this Actor stays quiet.

### Input

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://example.com/pricing",
    { "url": "https://competitor.com/plans", "selector": ".price-table", "label": "competitor-pricing" }
  ],
  "mode": "text",
  "webhookUrl": "https://hooks.slack.com/services/XXX"
}
```

Per-URL objects override the global `mode`, `selector`, `attr`, `ldType`, `path` and `pattern`.

### Output

One dataset row per target:

| field | meaning |
|---|---|
| `status` | `FIRST_RUN` · `UNCHANGED` · `TEXT_CHANGED` · `VALUE_CHANGED` · `ERROR` · `NO_VALUE` |
| `changed` | boolean — the field to filter on |
| `value` / `previousValue` | now vs before |
| `detail.snippets` | the exact words added and removed |
| `hash` / `previousHash` | stable fingerprints |

A failed page load is reported as `ERROR` and is **never** counted as a change.

### Typical uses

- Competitor pricing and feature pages
- Terms of service / privacy policy edits (compliance)
- Government or regulator notice pages
- Documentation and changelog pages
- Job, tender or grant listing pages
- Any page a client pays you to keep an eye on

### Schedule it

This Actor is built to run on a schedule. Daily is right for most pages; hourly for prices and
stock. Point `webhookUrl` at Slack, Discord, Zapier or Make and you never open Apify again.

# Actor input Schema

## `urls` (type: `array`):

Pages to monitor. Plain URLs, or objects like {"url":"https://…","selector":".price","label":"competitor-a"} to override settings per URL.

## `mode` (type: `string`):

text = visible text (recommended) · selector = one element · html = raw markup · jsonld = structured data field · meta = meta tag · regex = custom pattern.

## `selector` (type: `string`):

Used by the text / selector / html modes. Leave empty to watch the whole page.

## `excludeSelectors` (type: `array`):

CSS selectors removed before comparing — cookie banners, ads, chat widgets, 'related products'. This is the single best fix for false alerts.

## `attr` (type: `string`):

With selector mode: read this attribute instead of the element's text (e.g. href, content).

## `ldType` (type: `string`):

With jsonld mode, e.g. Product.

## `path` (type: `string`):

With jsonld mode, dotted path, e.g. offers.price

## `pattern` (type: `string`):

With regex mode. The first capture group is what gets compared.

## `onlyChanges` (type: `boolean`):

Push only rows that actually changed (plus repeatedly broken pages). Recommended when watching many URLs on a schedule.

## `alertOnErrorAfter` (type: `integer`):

A page failing once is noise; failing this many runs in a row is news — dead link, blocked, or the site was restructured. 0 disables it.

## `notifyOnFirstRun` (type: `boolean`):

By default the first run only records a baseline and sends nothing.

## `resetBaseline` (type: `boolean`):

Forget everything stored and start fresh. Use after you change the selector or mode.

## `keepHistory` (type: `integer`):

Store this many past values per target so you can see how a page evolved. 0 disables history.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Hard cap on dataset rows per run. 0 = no cap.

## `renderJs` (type: `boolean`):

Use a headless browser. Slower and more expensive — only enable if the content is missing without it.

## `waitForSelector` (type: `string`):

With Render JavaScript on: wait until this element appears before reading the page.

## `customHeaders` (type: `object`):

Extra request headers, e.g. a Cookie or Authorization header for pages behind a login.

## `concurrency` (type: `integer`):

How many URLs to check in parallel.

## `webhookUrl` (type: `string`):

POSTs a JSON payload here when something changes. Works with Slack, Discord, Zapier and Make.

## `stateStoreName` (type: `string`):

Named key-value store holding the previous values. Use different names to keep separate watch lists.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Optional Apify proxy configuration for sites that block datacenter traffic.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://books.toscrape.com/catalogue/a-light-in-the-attic_1000/index.html"
  ],
  "mode": "text",
  "excludeSelectors": [
    ".cookie-banner",
    "#ads",
    ".chat-widget"
  ],
  "onlyChanges": false,
  "alertOnErrorAfter": 3,
  "notifyOnFirstRun": false,
  "resetBaseline": false,
  "keepHistory": 0,
  "maxItems": 0,
  "renderJs": false,
  "concurrency": 5,
  "stateStoreName": "website-change-monitor-state"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `changes` (type: `string`):

No description

## `downloadCsv` (type: `string`):

No description

## `summary` (type: `string`):

No description

## `targetsChecked` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "urls": [
        "https://books.toscrape.com/catalogue/a-light-in-the-attic_1000/index.html"
    ],
    "excludeSelectors": [
        ".cookie-banner",
        "#ads",
        ".chat-widget"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("that_red_bird/website-change-monitor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "urls": ["https://books.toscrape.com/catalogue/a-light-in-the-attic_1000/index.html"],
    "excludeSelectors": [
        ".cookie-banner",
        "#ads",
        ".chat-widget",
    ],
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("that_red_bird/website-change-monitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "urls": [
    "https://books.toscrape.com/catalogue/a-light-in-the-attic_1000/index.html"
  ],
  "excludeSelectors": [
    ".cookie-banner",
    "#ads",
    ".chat-widget"
  ]
}' |
apify call that_red_bird/website-change-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,that_red_bird/website-change-monitor"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/xUS3mXi1ef5eYh8CF/builds/Fr8wbx3wPBYKb8rJw/openapi.json