Use This App to Track Changes or Updates on Any Website
If you ever need to keep track of small changes on a website, Visual Ping can help. Visual Ping is a website and browser extension that monitors websites for virtually any text, visual, and formatting changes you specify. In a way, it’s like using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine , only in real time.
We’ve already mentioned Visual Ping as a tool for tracking stock and price changes in hot-selling items like PC components and game consoles , but there are many other applications for this service.
For example, when COVID vaccines first appeared, many used Visual Ping to track the availability of an appointment. Similarly, you can use Visual Ping to track when items open for pre-order or when tickets for a live event become available. And it can track small changes in important online documents, such as a company’s terms of service or a political candidate’s website. You can even use it to monitor server state changes in online video games like Final Fantasy XIV .
And if Twitter ever takes advantage of the tweet-editing feature it recently teased, you could theoretically use Visual Ping to track individual tweets to see if they’ve ever been edited.
Visual Ping is available in two formats: the free Visual Ping browser extension and the VisualPin.io web page. Both versions offer pretty much the same functionality, but work a little differently.
Visual Ping Browser Extension
The free browser extension will also monitor any open websites for changes, scanning every 5 seconds and notifying you of any changes as long as your computer is on and your browser is open.
The only downside is that real-time scanning uses up your computer’s resources, which can slow down other websites and programs. Luckily, the extension also performs up to two server-side checks per day regardless of whether you’re using a browser, and any alerts are sent to your email, which is useful when you’re away from your computer.
You can install the Chrome extension here (it also works in other Chromium-based browsers like Edge).
VisualPing.io website
The VisualPing.io website , on the other hand, is completely server based and checks for updates whether or not you are online. Anyone can monitor five URLs at once for free, and the server will check each page up to once a day for changes.
However, you will have to pay to crawl at a higher frequency or to track more than five websites. Plans start at $14/month (or $120/year) to track 25 websites with an hourly check. There are also pay-as-you-go options that don’t require a subscription.
Luckily, both Visual Ping products are free and easy to use.
We suggest using a free browser extension when you are closely monitoring time-sensitive alerts such as stock changes when you are already at your computer, and the VisualPing.io website when you are monitoring for updates that you do not need to respond to. immediately.
Whichever of the two methods you use, we also suggest enabling push notifications in your browser and email app on your phone if you’re paying particular attention to any updates.
Visual Ping can definitely help track tabs on certain pages from time to time, but there are other ways to track your favorite websites, such as using an RSS feed or a news aggregator app to collect the latest articles and content updates from all sites. websites, YouTube channels, and podcasts you follow into a single feed, or create a single universal streaming watchlist with Plex .