What is web scraping change tracking?

Change tracking scrapes pages periodically and compares results. When data changes—prices, availability, content—it triggers alerts.

Automated systems capture page content at intervals, compare against previous versions, and notify you of differences.

• Price monitoring: Track competitor pricing changes
• Stock alerts: Detect when items become available
• Content updates: Monitor news or regulatory changes
• Job postings: Watch for new positions

1. Initial scrape establishes baseline
2. Scheduled scrapes capture current state
3. Comparison identifies differences
4. Changes trigger configured actions

Firecrawl's changeTracking format returns structured diffs automatically—no custom comparison logic needed. For agent-driven monitoring — where a signed webhook notifies your agent only when meaningful changes occur — see the Firecrawl /monitor endpoint.

Change tracking transforms scraping from one-time extraction to continuous monitoring for real-time market awareness. For a hands-on guide to building a competitor monitoring system — scheduling scrapes, diffing changelog and pricing pages, and getting AI-filtered alerts — see the Firecrawl Monitor tutorial.