FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
What's the email address used for confirming subscriptions and sending commands?
False negatives and false positives - why does Changewatching not alert me when something's changed / alert me when nothing has changed?
If you're not getting alerts when you should be, then try increasing the change sensitivity setting.
If you're getting alerts but nothing seems to have changed, then try reducing the change sensitivity setting.
If you'd like to know more about how the change sensitivity settings work, check out the technical page.
If there's a web page out there that doesn't work well with Changewatching, no matter which sensitivity setting is used, then please consider submitting a bug report to contact@changewatching.co.uk. It might improve the service for everyone.
If you believe you're getting false positive results, it's worth noting that some websites often make small changes to index pages that aren't immediately obvious to the naked eye, for example inserting new text near the bottom of the page or changing the layout slightly. Although the Changewatching software tries to filter out such things some still get through. Strictly speaking, Changewatching is actually working correctly by reporting these changes. However, further development time will be used to address these irritations (a more advanced differencing function is underway and some more advanced user controls are planned) and it may still be worthwhile to report these cases as a bug, as it provides more real-world examples for testing.
Even on the highest sensitivity setting, I don't get any alerts - why not?
It may be that the site you want to monitor delivers its content exclusively via Javascript. Changewatching won't detect changes that are hidden behind Javascript. It also won't detect changes that require Changewatching to follow a link or load something else, for example a video or a picture. It works mainly on text.
If you would normally log in to the website you want to watch, and being able to see the changing content you want to monitor requires you to be logged in, then Changewatching won't be able to monitor for changes. Changewatching can only monitor things that are publicly accessible. See the section on logging in to websites.
How do I change settings for an existing subscription?
Just go to the main page and re-enter the details as before, but with new settings. As long as the web page and email address are the same as before, then this will change your settings, rather than creating a new subscription. Be careful that the URL is exactly the same as before, else you'll create a new subscription.
How do I stop all messages?
Just email the phrase "unsubscribe all" to robot@changewatching.co.uk. All your subscriptions will be cancelled.
Changewatching is spamming me! Make it stop!!!
Sorry to hear that.
There are 3 main reasons why that might happen: 1) Someone is deliberately and maliciously entering your email address into the web form, and each time Changewatching then emails you to check that you requested the service. 2) Someone has a similar email address to you, and they keep typing it in wrong, resulting in the same effect as 1. 3) There's a bug in the program and something has gone horribly wrong. If you haven't requested any service from Changewatching and you're receiving something other than the standard activation request, then it might be scenario 3.
Either way, Changewatching provides an automated service to put a stop to such spamming. Simply email the word blockme (all one word) to robot@changewatching.co.uk. The software will reply, asking you to confirm that you wish to block that email address. Once you've replied to that email, a strict 3-month ban will imposed on any email to that address. The only way to lift the ban is either to wait 3 months or email a real live person and ask for the block to be lifted. The blockme command is available to any email address, even if you don't have any subscriptions set up with Changewatching. If you are a Changewatching user, this command will also wipe out your subscriptions and delete all your data within 28 days.
Alternatively, if you have subscriptions set up with Changewatching and thus would prefer not to set up a block, you may find the antispam command more useful.
What are all the different commands that can be sent to the robot@changewatching.co.uk address?
There's a full list here.
Changewatching has stopped responding to me / I've added some new subscriptions via the website, but I never got an activation request - why?
There is a limit to how many times an activation request can go unanswered before Changewatching stops sending activation requests. This is an anti-spam measure. If you reach this limit, Changewatching will send you an email to let you know why no more activation requests will be allowed until you confirm one of the outstanding activation requests. Please check your emails carefully, including any spam folders, to see if this applies to you. If not, it might be there is a technical problem. Please check the blog for any announcements of technical problems. If none of that seems to apply to your situation, please get in touch using the email address at the bottom of this page and report the problem.
Will the person who runs the website I'm tracking know that I'm tracking them?
If the website owner keeps an eye on their website's logs, then they will know someone has set up a Changewatching subscription because they will see the Changewatching web crawler visiting their website, but they won't know who set up the subscription or how many people are watching the same page. Changewatching won't share your info with anyone else (see the privacy section). However, if you're worried about privacy then you might want to keep your IP address hidden when you visit their website using your web browser.
Can Changewatching be used to track changes to RSS feeds / XML files?
Yes, the Changewatching parsers and filters handle XML just as easily as HTML. The medium sensitivity setting usually works best for RSS feeds. Avoid using the low sensitivity setting for RSS and XML data.
Can Changewatching be used to track non-HTML files, e.g. PDFs, Word documents, picture files etc.?
Yes, though it may not work as well as tracking web pages (Changewatching was primarily designed to deal with HTML, and structures that resemble HTML (e.g. XML)). Changewatching can track changes in any file that is accessible via a standard HTTP request. In other words, as long as you have a URL for it, CW can track it. Avoid using the medium sensitivity setting for these sorts of files. Please also note that there is a limit on how much data the CW robot will download for any given URL.
What's the maximum file size that Changewatching will track?
If you instruct CW to track something larger than 2MB, only the first 2MB will be downloaded and compared. Tracking large files is discouraged, and it's not what CW was designed for, so if it happens a lot then the way Changewatching handles such requests in future may change.
Can I sneakily use Changewatching to boost my SEO efforts by making it look like my site gets more clicks?
No. Search engines don't track Changewatching's web crawler (unless you instruct CW to watch a search engine) and even if they noticed it, they'd probably soon ignore it. CW's web crawler also doesn't follow links, so there's no point in trying to boost search engine clicks by pointing CW at a search engine's results pages.
Can I sneakily use Changewatching to boost the number of hits my website gets?
Yes, but if you're dishonest enough to include an obviously robotic visitor in your visitor count then it would probably be easier to just make up the numbers anyway.
Can Changewatching track websites that are blocked in the UK, e.g. torrent sites?
Yes, usually. But it can only notify you of changes, it won't deliver any of their content.
The site I want Changewatching to monitor requires a username/password to get to the content. How does that work?
It doesn't. It is possible to make that work, but you would have to supply your username and password to a strange, untrusted website - i.e. Changewatching. If I suggested it was a good idea to hand over your user credentials for other websites then that would probably be because I'm in the scamming, phishing or user data-slurping business, which I am not.
Why are you offering a free service? What are you getting out of it?
To be very clear, I am not interested in harvesting a list of email addresses and/or IP addresses. Email addresses and IP addresses are thrown away as soon as possible after they aren't needed to provide a service. Changewatching serves 3 purposes for me: 1) To offer a small demonstration of the author's modest technical skills 2) In a world where websites are increasingly over-run with dubious security and privacy measures such as client-side scripting and over-reliance on third-party providers, to provide an example of how I believe a web application should work (at least to the extent that my programming skills and tight budget allow) 3) To collect a list of URLs for my web crawler.
If you're so concerned with users' privacy, why don't you use HTTPS/SSL/TLS on the website?
The information passed to the website is fairly low-grade and the type of attack that HTTPS defends against is quite rare on normal internet connections. Nevertheless, I would use HTTPS if I could afford it.Have you ever actually been asked any of these questions?
Given that this page was written before the website was made public, no. Most website FAQ sections are probably written in the same way.