# Website Change Monitor (`yearly_register/website-change-monitor`) Actor

Monitor public webpages for content changes, compare snapshots, and output structured change records for scheduled alerts and workflows.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/yearly\_register/website-change-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Automation Tech](https://apify.com/yearly_register) (community)
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.90 / 1,000 page checkeds

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/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
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.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## 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.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Website Change Monitor

Website Change Monitor creates stable text snapshots and SHA-256 fingerprints from public web pages for recurring change detection. It is useful when a page has no RSS feed or changelog and you want a simple structured way to see whether its text has changed over time.

### What it does

The Actor fetches configured public URLs, normalizes relevant page text, creates deterministic fingerprints, and writes structured snapshot records to the default Apify dataset. Repeated runs can then be compared by fingerprint or consumed by downstream automations that react when content changes.

Typical use cases include:

- monitoring public policy, pricing, documentation, or product pages;
- detecting changes on competitor or vendor websites;
- tracking pages that do not provide their own update feed;
- feeding detected changes into review or alert workflows;
- scheduling recurring checks through Apify.

### Quick start

1. Add one or more public URLs to the Actor input.
2. Start with conservative request and result limits.
3. Run the Actor and inspect the default dataset.
4. Confirm that the extracted text represents the page content you want to monitor.
5. Run the same input again later and compare the fingerprint and normalized text.
6. Once the source behaves as expected, schedule recurring runs or trigger the Actor through the Apify API.

The Input tab also includes shared crawler controls for retries, concurrency, request limits, timeouts, and networking configuration, together with any Actor-specific snapshot options.

### Output

Each dataset item represents a normalized page snapshot with source metadata, scrape time, and a SHA-256 fingerprint derived from the monitored text. The Actor dataset schema defines the exact field contract. Results can be exported as JSON, CSV, or Excel or consumed through the Apify dataset API.

### Scheduling and integrations

For continuous monitoring, create an Apify schedule and compare new snapshots with previous results in your workflow. Results can feed webhooks, automation platforms, databases, notification services, or other Actors.

### Limitations

Pages can change for harmless reasons such as timestamps, rotating content, localization, or layout updates. Some highly dynamic pages may also produce noisy snapshots. A changed fingerprint means the monitored text changed; it does not by itself determine whether the change is important.

### Pricing

See the Actor's Apify Store **Pricing** tab for the currently configured pricing model and rates. Platform usage depends on page count, page size, retries, and monitoring frequency. Test a representative set of URLs before configuring frequent recurring runs.

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

List of URLs to start scraping from

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of results to scrape

## `maxRequests` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of requests to process

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of concurrent requests

## `maxRequestRetries` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of retries for failed requests

## `maxRequestsPerMinute` (type: `integer`):

Maximum requests per minute

## `requestTimeoutSecs` (type: `integer`):

Request timeout in seconds

## `contentSelector` (type: `string`):

CSS selector for the monitored region. The first match is used.

## `ignoreSelectors` (type: `array`):

CSS selectors for elements to remove before text normalization. These are removed from the monitored content.

## `maxContentLength` (type: `integer`):

Maximum normalized text characters included in output. The fingerprint still covers the full text.

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

Proxy configuration for requests

## `debug` (type: `boolean`):

Enable debug logging

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [],
  "maxResults": 1000,
  "maxRequests": 10000,
  "maxConcurrency": 10,
  "maxRequestRetries": 3,
  "maxRequestsPerMinute": 60,
  "requestTimeoutSecs": 30,
  "contentSelector": "body",
  "ignoreSelectors": [
    "script",
    "style",
    "noscript",
    "template"
  ],
  "maxContentLength": 100000,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  },
  "debug": false
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (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 = {
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": false
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("yearly_register/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 = { "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": False } }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("yearly_register/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 '{
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}' |
apify call yearly_register/website-change-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,yearly_register/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/i7UBixCpaNggks4go/builds/FKkQgUyP5kXQWb3S1/openapi.json