How to create a basic monitor
Contents of this article
Welcome to Visualping!
In this learning guide, you'll learn how to get started with Visualping. We'll show you how to monitor web pages, utilize AI to get important alerts and reduce false positives. When finished, you'll be able to monitor almost any webpage confidently and accurately. We are super excited to have you here!
What can you do with Visualping?
Visualping has been detecting website changes, since 2015, for millions of users, around the world. Here is a summary of some use cases.
Monitor latest biomedical research in various journals and publications.
Check competitor offerings and changes in pricing models.
Get notified about new political and corporate press releases.
Track eBay, Amazon, and Kijiji product listings.
Get alerts for real-estate price changes.
Monitor google search rankings.
Receive alerts for changes in government regulations.
How to create a new monitor?
Step 1:
Making a New Monitor
First, copy the URL of the page you want to monitor. Then click Start monitoring at the top of your Visualping dashboard. The monitor creator opens on the Single tab, where you add one page at a time.
To add pages another way, click the arrow next to Start monitoring and choose Discovery (search for pages) or Bulk (upload a list of pages).
Links from the browser extension and widget, and the assistant, also open the creator on the Single tab. The Discovery tab suggests pages to monitor from a plain-language description, or finds pages similar to ones you already monitor. See Using the monitor creator. Discovery searches cost no credits, with a limit of 30 searches per 10 minutes. The Bulk tab accepts a list of pages and titles and always monitors the full page. Bulk is available to anyone who can create monitors.
Note: To change a monitor you already have, select it on your dashboard and open its Settings.
Pro Tip: You'll want to get a direct link, if possible. For example, if you're planning to monitor Google search results, make sure to use the URL with the URL search parameter. The following are URLs that will lead you directly to Google search results and other exact full page URL that will lead you to a site's subpage.
https://www.google.com/search?q=visualpinghttps://www.google.com/search?q=best+visual+webpage+monitoring+toolshttps://visualping.io/bloghttps://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/frequently-asked-questions-individuals/canadian-income-tax-rates-individuals-current-previous-years.htmlIf you can't get to the page you want directly by URL, no worries, you can use Click actions to interact with the page.
Step 2:
Paste the URL in the input field and click Go.
On the Single tab, actions, the alert condition, and presets become available only after you enter the URL and click Go.
Step 3:
Adding a wait time
Take a look at the preview window. Did the page load correctly? Are there missing elements? If all looks good, you can go ahead and skip this step.
Sometimes web pages take longer to load than others for various reasons from page size to network traffic. While our system can auto-detect whether a page has finished loading, in some cases elements may not load. To solve this, we can tell the monitor to wait and give the page some more time to load.
Open the Advanced Settings panel and select your wait time from the dropdown.
Another way to add additional time is through the Actions panel, by adding a wait action.
Step 4:
Setting up AI instructions
For most monitors, this part is the most important and the only thing you really need to worry about. By giving the AI an accurate prompt, you will only get alerted for what really matters without having to worry about complicated settings.
Our AI will offer you suggestions tailored to the monitor under the Suggestions tab in the prompts panel. Pick one if it matches your desired behavior. Check the Recent tab to quickly reuse prompts you've applied on other monitors.
After AI summarizes your condition under We’ll alert you when, click Edit to change it. The Edit link isn’t shown for custom prompts.
If you do not have anything specific to monitor, choose Any important changes. This option focuses on core page content and ignores minor or expected changes such as errors, cookie popups, weather, timestamps, and similar updates.
If you need more control, you can enter your own criteria in the text box or add additional instructions.
If you want alerts for any change, regardless of importance, choose Any changes in the No AI used tab. Be aware that this option may generate more false alerts.
Pro Tip: a good AI prompt is accurate, use precise keywords and concise phrases. For example, a good prompt is "the price of the item lowers" or "a new article is added in Getting Started", a bad prompt could look like "something changes" or "a new thing is added". Having a good prompt ensures you only get notified about what really matters to you. Here are more details on making good prompts.
Step 5:
Finishing Up
Now you just need to select how often the page will be checked for changes. Note that changes are not detected as soon as they happen, a check needs to happen before you can be alerted. Higher frequencies are available on higher plans, however, the higher the frequency, the more checks this monitor uses.
Finally, click Start monitoring at the bottom of the creator and your monitor will become active.
If you are running into issues such as pop-ups, banners, logins, or drop-downs keep reading.
Are elements blocking your page? Need to click on the page, type, scroll, or log in?
No website is alike. Sometimes you'll run into popups, annoying banners, login pages, and drop-downs. Fortunately, Visualping's action tools can help you. To learn more about actions click here. To learn how to log in on a page in Visualping click here.
Troubleshooting Tips
Can't find the Start monitoring button?
The button was previously called New monitor. You need edit access to the workspace to see it, and it is disabled while you are viewing all workspaces at once. Switch to a single workspace to use it.
Selection tool not working?
If you can't select an element using the selection tool or if it doesn't click, block or type here are some common solutions.
Use a direct xPath, Class, or Selector.
Is the element in an iFrame?
Can't see the entire page?
Try using the scroll action.
We have page limitations.
Getting false positives?
Read our how to reduce false positives article.
Bot detection? Security checks? Geo-block?
Try using the Basic Proxy option or a checking location from a different country, try the checking location the website is based in (ex: .ca = Canada) from the Advanced Settings tab.
Disable the "Block ads and cookies" option in Advanced settings.
Still having issues?
If none of the troubleshooting steps above resolve the problem, or if you are running into technical issues, reach out to our Support team. Include the page URL, what you were trying to do, and any error messages so we can help faster.