Comments for Google Reader Can Now Track Changes to Any Website - Even if it Can't Find a Feed

Google Reader Can Now Track Changes to Any Website - Even if it Can't Find a Feed

2010-01-25T22:19:33Z

Google just announced an interesting update to Google Reader. Google's online feed reader now allows you to track changes on any page - even those that don't feature an RSS feed. Google will create its own custom feeds for these sites and update the feed whenever it notices a change. Google Reader will display a short snippet of the page changes in the RSS feed.

]]> Until today, Google Reader would simply respond with an error message if you tried to subscribe to a site that didn't offer an RSS feed. Now, Google will simply create a new feed for the site and track updates. It's not clear how often Google plans to ping these sites, however.

Thanks to this, you can easily track the latest discounts on Macys.com or updates to Zillow.com's homepage.

As far as we were able to see, Google Reader creates very clean RSS feeds for these items. While Google doesn't make it obvious, you can find the newly created feed by clicking "show details" in Google Reader. Thanks to this, you can subscribe to this new feed in any feed reader and not just in Google Reader.

There are, of course, a number of other sites that also allow you to track when something changes on a site. ChangeDetection.com, for example, is a popular online service that will alert you whenever a page changes. Unlike Google Reader's new feature, ChangeDetection.com also gives you a very detailed overview of of what exactly changed and what the page looked like before. The service also offers an RSS feed of these changes.

Comment from Posigrip on 2011-04-15

2011-04-15T18:20:55Z

This sounds all to familiar - wikipedia! Google needs to take a step back and focus on what they were good at!

Comment from Toni on 2010-10-07

2010-10-07T11:02:21Z

There is a plug-in for Firefox which also helps tracking down changes on sites, but it only works with HTML sites (same as femtoo, as far as i've seen).
It's really simple to use, and you can add as many sites as you wish. it's called update scanner.

Does anyone know if there is a way to track down changes on php and flash sites?

thanks!

Comment from Ilan Ben Menachem on 2010-03-26

2010-03-26T10:11:57Z

I am using Femtoo to track various news headlines - It's great - it sends me an Instant Message whenever there is a change.

Comment from Chris on 2010-02-14

2010-02-15T02:14:32Z

Is there a better service than ChangeDetection.com, that meets the following criteria:

1. Track additions (and deletions, if possible)
2. Be web-based/online (no stand-alone programs)
3. Check pages at least once a day
4. Be FREE
5. No limit to # of pages checked
6. Deliver updates in an RSS feed (so I can read updates via Google Reader)

I don't think anything exists with these requirements that's *better* than changedetection.com; but I'm curious...

Comment from reputation management on 2010-02-08

2010-02-08T09:36:25Z

Strike that... Since this site has a feed, I can't subscript to a page... bummer! Anyone know how I can force it to use the page I set instead of an RSS if one is available?

Comment from elifecoach on 2010-01-31

2010-01-31T11:22:15Z

http://www.dapper.net is a site where you can make your own rss-feed from anysite...

Comment from mdhsafi on 2010-01-29

2010-01-29T08:29:34Z

Now we have the option to create a custom feed to track changes on pages that don't have their own feed. Sounds awseome. msafi.com

Comment from Hannah Trinity on 2010-01-26

2010-01-27T04:25:58Z

Great news but I'm pretty interested in the inputs of your article comments, I really like to try Fermtoo.

Comment from Paul on 2010-01-26

2010-01-26T18:02:17Z

I would wonder if most of the sites that don't put out an RSS feed are even worth following. Take bloggers for example. If a blogger doesn't take the time to set up an RSS feed do they want to be read? Do they know what they are doing?

Just questions ;)

Comment from Matteo on 2010-01-26

2010-01-26T11:15:37Z

I've been using Femtoo for a while now, to monitor some of my services.

I found it powerful and easy to customize!

Please check it out here:
http://femtoo.com

Comment from Charles on 2010-01-26

2010-01-26T10:45:14Z

mmm. this sounds like the Femtoo service I've been using for a while now, to track changes on my favourite websites. Perhaps Google can learn a thing or two from this! http://femtoo.com

Comment from Jason on 2010-01-26

2010-01-26T09:39:29Z

I'm a big fan of Femtoo too and have been using it for a few months now. I'm an IT lawyer and use it to track changes in legal web pages. It is easy to use which helps a lot as I'm not that technical. Well designed too.

Comment from Raquel on 2010-01-26

2010-01-26T08:44:27Z

I'm using Femtoo also to track very different things, like updates in a comic web page or changes in the price of a specific parfum I'm interested in, and it works perfectly. It's being really useful for me!

Comment from Markus on 2010-01-26

2010-01-26T08:32:36Z

I am using Femtoo to track various news headlines - It's great - it sends me an Instant Message whenever there is a change

Comment from Tom Carnell on 2010-01-26

2010-01-26T08:21:00Z

(Reply to Sara Brown's comment)

Femtoo makes this type of functionality very useful for the 'normal' user, with the 'Tracker Library' feature:

http://www.femtoo.com/index.php?action=TrackerLibraryLoad

Which means that an 'advanced' user can create and maintain a 'tracker', but the general public can 'subscribe' and receive the change notifications.

Comment from Sara Brown on 2010-01-26

2010-01-26T08:14:28Z

Interesting Information - Wonder how this will be useful to the normal Google user though.

Comment from Tom Carnell on 2010-01-25

2010-01-26T07:47:00Z

Hi - Femtoo - (http://femtoo.com) has been able to do this for some months now. But Femtoo also has these key features:

- Monitor particular parts of a page
- Parse data and check for particular conditions (share price hit a certain amount etc)
- Premium accounts can create 'low latency' trackers for critical monitoring applications
- Receive notifications via email, Instant Messenger and soon SMS (I think)
- Add a 'widget' to any page to allow people to 'subscribe' to a 'tracker'
- It uses the amazing cQuery (http://cquery.com) Server-side CSS Content Selection Engine
- You can publish 'trackers' to the 'Tracker Library' and anybody can subscribe.

Comment from Marfi on 2010-01-25

2010-01-26T06:46:26Z

Pretty interesting, great news!

Comment from hayden on 2010-01-25

2010-01-26T06:02:02Z

I use femtoo.com, that way you can track just the particular part of a page that you're interested in using CSS selectors - and they also have callbacks for any of the developers out there.

Comment from Emil on 2010-01-25

2010-01-26T05:36:46Z

Cool, people interested in this may also like my site, Readfresh:

http://www.readfresh.com

Covered by ReadWriteWeb here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/visual_rss.php

Comment from Dale on 2010-01-25

2010-01-26T03:49:13Z

I've been using this feature for about two years.

Comment from lloyd on 2010-01-25

2010-01-26T03:41:20Z

Reminds me of NetMind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetMind

Comment from Gstar2002 on 2010-01-25

2010-01-26T03:31:40Z

remind me of page2rss, which i have been using for a long time.
my question is, which google pay page2rss for that idea?

Comment from David Reynolds on 2010-01-25

2010-01-26T02:14:34Z

Good stuff. I've been wondering how long it would be until this functionality existed. I wouldn't be surprised if this tech uses pubsubhubbub to push updates to Google Reader since there's already support for it.