# Website tracking > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Website_tracking > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Website_tracking.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website_tracking > Source revision: 1355339386 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|Act of archiving existing websites and tracking changes to websites over time}} {{Distinguish|Website visitor tracking|Web tracking}} {{Multiple issues| {{onesource|date=March 2016}} {{Notability|date=September 2024}} }} '''Website tracking''' refers to the act of archiving existing [websites](/source/websites) and tracking changes to the website over time. == Website monitoring == [Website monitoring](/source/Website_monitoring) allows interested parties to track the health of a website or web application. A software program can periodically check to see if a [website](/source/website) is down, if broken links exist, or if errors have occurred on specific pages. For example, a web developer who hosts and maintains a website for a customer may want to be notified instantly if the site goes down or if a web application returns an error. Monitoring the web is a critical component for marketing, sales and product support strategies. Over the past decade{{when|date=September 2024}} transactions on the web have significantly multiplied the use of [dynamic web page](/source/dynamic_web_page), secure web sites and integrated search capabilities which requires tracking of user behavior on web sites. == Website change detection == {{further|Change detection and notification}} Website change detection allows interested parties to be alerted when a website has changed. A [web crawler](/source/web_crawler) can periodically scan a website to see if any changes have occurred since its last visit. Reasons to track website changes include: * Enhanced automation: ** Triggering in [Event-driven programming](/source/Event-driven_programming) ** Updating dependent automation (such as [screen scraping](/source/screen_scraping) programs) ** [Link rot](/source/Link_rot) mitigation ** Change trend monitoring * Triggering human actions : ** Analyst classifications ** Updating documentation ** Competitive monitoring ** Compliance monitoring ** Enforcement monitoring ** Investigation monitoring == Web press clippings == This is a parallel application to the offline business of press clippings. For web press clippings, a crawler needs to scour the Internet to find terms that match keywords the clipping service is looking for. So for instance, the Vice President of the United States may have staff looking at web press clippings to see what is being said about the Vice President on any given day. To do this, a web press clipping service (aka [Media monitoring service](/source/Media_monitoring_service)) needs to monitor mainstream websites as well as blogs. * ereleases.com provides a list of web press clipping services{{Cite web|url=https://www.ereleases.com/clipping-services/|title=Online Press Clipping Services and News Monitoring Service|website=eReleases}} * [Google Alerts](/source/Google_Alerts) and OnWebChange.com provide notifications when keywords are found in newly indexed web content * [RSS feed](/source/RSS_feed)s can often be used in this case since these are the areas in which relevant content will be found. == Website archiving == {{See also|Web archiving}} This type of service archives a website so that changes to the website over time can be seen. Unless archived, older versions of a website cannot be viewed and may be lost permanently. Fortunately, there is at least one web service (see [Internet Archive](/source/Internet_Archive)) that tracks changes to most websites for free. Past information about a company can therefore be gleaned from this type of service, which can be very useful in some circumstances. == References == {{Reflist}} Category:Web archiving Category:Network management Category:Website management --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Website tracking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website_tracking) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website_tracking?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.