Changes
Read the Page Monitoring change feed, filter it, act on changes, and learn every kind of change that Page Monitoring records on your watched pages.
The Changes screen lists the changes on all watched pages of the domain, newest first. To open it, select Page Monitoring > Changes in the sidebar.
The change feed
Two views are available:
| View | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Needs attention | Only the changes that need a look. This view opens by default when something needs attention. |
| Everything | All changes on your watched pages. |
Each row is one check of one page. It shows the page address, the first changes (for example "Now set to noindex"), the status and the time. If the check found more changes, the row shows +N more. The feed shows 25 rows on each page, with headings such as Today and Yesterday.
Grouped changes
When the same change occurs on 3 or more pages in one day, the feed shows one row for all of them. For example, "Title changed on 12 pages". If none of these changes needs attention, the row says Likely one template or site-wide change. Click the row to see each page.
Minor changes
Some changes are minor, for example links that change on every visit, a small speed difference, or a change in the number of images. VitalSentinel records them, but it shows them collapsed under a line such as Also 3 minor changes. A minor change never needs attention.
When a page returns an error, the title, headings and text of that check also change. VitalSentinel shows these changes collapsed under Also N changes caused by the error page, so the error stays at the top.
A part of a page that changes on most checks has the chip Changes often. VitalSentinel never flags it.
Change details
Click a row to open the details panel. It shows:
- What changed: each change, with the values before and after. Text shows Before and After, with the changed words marked. Numbers show as "200 → 404". Lists show what was Added and Removed.
- What happened after this change: what happened In search, to Googlebot visits and in Google's index after the change. This section shows only when there is news.
- Compare this check on the page: opens the full comparison in the watched page panel.
Change status
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Needs attention | The change can hurt the page in search or for visitors. |
| Seen | Somebody saw the change. It stays in Needs attention until the problem is gone. |
| Resolved | The page is back to normal. |
| Normal | Somebody marked the change as normal. |
| Snoozed | The change is hidden for a time. |
Actions on a change
Workspace owners and admins can act on a change that needs attention. Click More actions on the row:
- Mark as seen: tell your team that you saw the change. It stays in the list until it is fixed.
- Snooze…: hide the change for 7, 30 or 90 days. It comes back if the problem is still there.
- This is normal…: stop VitalSentinel from raising the change. Use this when the change is on purpose. Select Only on this page or On every page, now and later. The second option adds a rule to Ignored changes.
When you mark a change as normal, the current state of the page becomes the new starting point for comparisons.
To undo an action, click Reopen.
Bulk actions
In the Needs attention view, select changes with the checkboxes. Then click Mark as seen or This is normal…. You can update up to 200 changes at a time.
Filters
The filter bar at the bottom of the screen has these filters:
| Filter | Options |
|---|---|
| Change | A kind of change, or Element: name for one of your page elements |
| Page address | Contains, does not contain, starts with, is, is not |
| When | Within the last 1, 7, 30 or 90 days, or before or after a date |
| Label | The labels of your pages. Shows only when you use labels |
The view and the filters stay in the page address, so you can share a filtered feed.
Change types
Page Monitoring groups changes into 17 kinds. The same kinds are in the Change filter and in the What to watch list of Page Monitoring alerts.
| Kind of change | Examples of what VitalSentinel tells you |
|---|---|
| Your page elements | "Price changed: 49 EUR → 59 EUR", "Stock status disappeared" |
| Stopped loading or errors | "Now returns 404 (was 200)", "Stopped loading", "The page shows an error page", "Briefly down 12:00–12:41", "Loads again" |
| Redirects | "Now redirects to /new-page", "No longer redirects", "Redirect type changed from 301 to 302" |
| Noindex and robots directives | "Now set to noindex", "No longer set to noindex", "Robots directives changed" |
| Blocked by robots.txt | "robots.txt now blocks Googlebot", "robots.txt allows Googlebot again" |
| Canonical | "Canonical now points to /other-page", "Canonical removed" |
| Title | "Title changed", "Title removed" |
| Meta description | "Meta description changed", "Meta description removed" |
| H1 | "H1 changed", "H1 removed" |
| Other headings | "H2 headings changed" |
| Language and hreflang | "Hreflang: 1 removed", "Page language changed" |
| Main content | "Main content changed (about 25%)", "Word count went down from 1200 to 500" |
| Structured data | "Structured data types: 1 removed", "Structured data now has errors" |
| Links and images | "Navigation links: 3 added, 1 removed", "Linked websites: example.net added", "2 images are missing" |
| Analytics and tag scripts | "An analytics tag was removed", "Third-party scripts: a new script added" |
| Blank page or rendering problems | "The page now shows up blank", "The page failed to render", "JavaScript errors: 3 added" |
| Response headers and speed | "Content type changed", "HSTS removed", "Viewport changed", "Time to first byte: 300 ms → 1400 ms" |
Which changes need attention
A change needs attention when it can hurt the page in search or for visitors. For example:
- The page stops loading, returns an error, or shows an error page.
- The page gets a noindex tag, or robots.txt now blocks Googlebot.
- The canonical now points to a different page.
- A redirect is added or changed.
- The title becomes empty, or most of the main text is removed.
- An analytics tag is removed.
- The page becomes blank or fails to render.
Changes to your page elements never need attention. To get told about them, create a Page element changed alert rule.
When a page recovers, for example it loads again or is no longer noindex, VitalSentinel records the recovery and resolves the change.
Empty feed
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Nothing needs your attention. | No change needs a look now. |
| Nothing has changed yet. | VitalSentinel found no changes. The message shows when VitalSentinel last checked your pages. |
| No changes match these filters | Change or clear a filter. |
Related
Watching Pages
Add pages to Page Monitoring, read the Pages screen and page statuses, and use the watched page panel - changes, Google data, checks, page details and page settings.
Settings
Set the Page Monitoring defaults for new pages, default labels, the weekly top pages list, and the kinds of change that VitalSentinel records but never flags.
