First and by far the best (nothing comes even close), is client software called WebSite-Watcher (WSW).

I‘ve been using WSW for years and it‘s an essential tool. I couldn‘t work without it. Why do I like it? Here are a few of the many reasons.

• You buy it, you own it. No monthly charges.
• Stable, rarely crashes.
• Updated versions on a very regular basis.
• Can monitor pages up to once every minute. So, Phil‘s request for a service that monitors pages once an hour is not a problem.
• Pages are highlighted to show where changes (new content has been added, old content removed) have occurred.
• Keywords: only show a page has a changed page if certain keywords are included on it.
• Works on pages that require a login.
• Also will handle RSS and ATOM feeds
• Notification of changed pages via email, with changed page attached.
• Easy to add new pages, one-click and you‘re done.
• Archiving of pages not a problem with this free add-on tool

A two week free trial is available, for Windows only.

The other service I‘m currently testing is a web-based alerting service from noted web-developer, Marc Fest, of
QuickBrowse fame. It‘s called Trackle. While it‘s not nearly as powerful as Website-Watcher but Fest always creates useful tools. Trackle can also monitor pages on an hourly basis. So far, I‘m very impressed. Trackle also has a free trial; it‘s web based so works with any operating system.

WatchThatPage.com is not a bad service though it can be a bit tricky to get it all working right, but the price is right (free). However, the fact that it‘s donation-ware site scares me a bit. If I‘m going to invest the time and effort to import and organize lots of sites for tracking, I want to know it‘s going to be around for a while. That said, it has been online for several years but as we all know, things can change rapidly.

Kirkpatrick also writes about TrackEngine. This is a service that I haven‘t used but several colleagues tell me it‘s quite impressive. The biggest downside is that tracking many pages can get expensive.

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