Page watchers are pointed at URLs by hand. That works right up until the competitor launches something you had no reason to expect. We track the shape of the whole site instead, so new pages surface themselves.
Watch a competitor9,806 URLs tracked on one site.
Every one of them watched for appearing and disappearing, without anyone naming them first.
| What moves | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| Pages appear or disappear | A launch, a campaign, or a quiet retreat from a product line |
| Prices move | Every tracked product, so you see the direction before the press release |
| The tech stack changes | Swapping review app, email platform or support desk says where they are investing |
The first run is a baseline, not a report. There is nothing to compare against until the second one. Any change-detection tool that shows you something interesting on day one is showing you the present, not a change.
We diff the set of pages and the values on the ones we parse. We do not take visual snapshots, so a redesign that keeps the same URLs and prices will not register as a change here.