Available Tracked Element Types

12 min read
What to Track panel with the element type options (Full Page Text, Specific Area, Visual, Price, Feed, Parse) highlighted

When monitoring changes on a webpage, the type of tracked element selected defines what kind of content will be tracked and how updates are detected. The six standard types below appear in the standard editor under What to Track. Everything else is available in Advanced mode, where you can also track several elements on the same page.

Note: You can configure multiple tracked elements on a single page and mix types freely. For example, track a product's Price, Availability, and Rating all at once, each with its own threshold, conditions, and notifications. Add as many as you need in Advanced mode.

Standard Element Types

These appear in the standard editor under What to Track as soon as you add a page.

Full Page Text

  • Description: Tracks all visible text on the entire webpage.
  • Use Case: Useful for capturing comprehensive textual content.
Full Page Text example: a web page on the left, and PageCrawl's text diff showing the changed line on the right

Text (Specific Area)

  • Description: Monitors text changes in a specified area of a webpage.
  • Important Note: Only the first element matching the selector is tracked.
  • Use Case: Ideal for tracking text in specific areas, like headlines or descriptions.
Text example: a status page on the left, and PageCrawl's red/green text diff of the tracked text on the right

Visual

  • Description: Monitors and alerts on visual changes in a specified area.
  • Note: This is a beta feature; report any issues encountered.
  • Use Case: Ideal for tracking visual changes like layout updates or style changes.
Visual example: a web page on the left, and PageCrawl's Visually Compare control with a difference-percentage progress bar on the right

Price

  • Description: Detects and extracts the first price found on the page.
  • Limitation: May not work well on pages with multiple prices.
  • Use Case: Monitoring product prices on e-commerce websites.
Price example: a product page on the left, and PageCrawl showing the old price struck through, a down arrow, the new price, the percent change, and a sparkline

Feed / List

  • Description: Tracks entries from RSS or Atom feeds, detecting new, removed, or changed items.
  • Use Case: Monitoring blog feeds, news feeds, or any structured list for new entries and updates.
Feed example: a blog feed on the left, and PageCrawl listing the newly added feed items on the right

Parse (AI Extract)

  • Description: Uses AI to extract the specific information you describe in plain language (for example "the event date" or "the lowest price"), even when there is no clean selector to target.
  • Use Case: Pulling a single fact or field out of an unstructured page; the extracted value is then tracked for changes.
Parse example: an event page on the left, and PageCrawl's AI-extracted event date shown as a diff on the right

Advanced Mode Element Types

Switch to Advanced mode (the link at the top of the page editor) to open the full TYPE dropdown, track several elements on one page, and use the additional types below.

Tracked Elements section in Advanced mode with the TYPE, ELEMENT, and THRESHOLD selectors

Number

  • Description: Extracts and monitors numeric values in a specific webpage area.
  • Features: Provides basic statistical analysis and visual graphs.
  • Use Case: Useful for tracking numbers, such as stock levels or scores.
  • Also in the standard editor: You can enable Number tracking from Text mode in the standard create flow, without switching to Advanced mode.
Number example: a star count on the left, and PageCrawl showing the old value struck through, an up arrow, the new value, the percent change, and a sparkline

Availability

  • Description: Tracks the availability status of a product on the page.
  • Use Case: Monitoring whether a product is in stock, out of stock, or on pre-order.
  • Also in the standard editor: You can enable Availability from Price mode in the standard create flow, without switching to Advanced mode.
Availability example: a product page on the left, and PageCrawl showing 'Out of Stock (was: In Stock)' on the right

Rating

  • Description: Tracks the product rating displayed on the page.
  • Use Case: Monitoring changes to product ratings on review sites or e-commerce platforms.
Rating example: a product's star rating on the left, and PageCrawl showing the old rating, a down arrow, the new rating, and the percent change on the right

Reviews

  • Description: Tracks the review count displayed on the page.
  • Use Case: Monitoring how many reviews a product has received over time.
Reviews example: a review count on the left, and PageCrawl showing the old count, an up arrow, the new count, the percent change, and a sparkline on the right
  • Description: Tracks internal and external links originating from a webpage.
  • Use Case: Ideal for monitoring link changes on resource-heavy websites.
Links example: a navigation menu on the left, and PageCrawl listing added and removed links on the right

Iframes

  • Description: Monitors embedded content within <iframe> elements.
  • Important Note: May cause issues in some cases if “Hide cookie banners & block ads” is enabled.
  • Use Case: Useful for monitoring third-party embedded content.
Iframe example: a page with an embedded widget on the left, and PageCrawl's text diff of the iframe content on the right

HTML

  • Description: Monitors changes in the HTML content of a specific section.
  • Important Note: Focus on narrowly defined areas to avoid false positives.
  • Use Case: Useful for tracking changes in webpage structure or layout.
HTML example: page source on the left, and PageCrawl's text diff of the changed markup on the right

Text (All Matches)

  • Description: Tracks all elements matching the selector (not just the first).
  • Use Case: Useful for tracking lists, tables, or repeated content blocks.
Text (All Matches) example: a list of roles on the left, and PageCrawl's diff showing an added and a removed entry on the right

Text (All Matches, Sorted)

  • Description: Similar to “Text (All Matches)” but sorts results alphabetically.
  • Use Case: Reduces false positives for frequently reordered elements like product listings.
Text (All Matches, Sorted) example: matched entries on the left, and PageCrawl's diff of the sorted set on the right

HTML (All Matches)

  • Description: Tracks all matching HTML elements on the page.
  • Use Case: Ideal for monitoring multiple dynamic sections.
HTML (All Matches) example: page source on the left, and PageCrawl's text diff of the markup on the right

Text Presence

  • Description: Searches the full page for specific keywords and returns a simple Yes/No result.
  • How it Works: Enter comma-separated keywords. Returns "Yes" if ANY keyword is found on the page, "No" otherwise. The search is case-insensitive.
  • Invert Option: Enable "Invert" to reverse the logic - returns "Yes" when NONE of the keywords are found.
  • Use Cases:
    • Stock Availability: Monitor for "sold out", "out of stock" keywords
    • Product Status: Track "discontinued", "pre-order", "coming soon" status
    • Content Monitoring: Detect when specific text appears or disappears
    • Back in Stock Alerts: Invert "sold out" to detect when product becomes available
    • Compliance: Check for required disclaimers or legal text
  • Best Practice: Combine with other tracked elements (like Price or Text) to get both the status and the content.
Text Presence example: a page on the left, and PageCrawl showing a Yes/No state with the previous value on the right

PDF File

  • Description: Tracks text content within PDF files.
  • Limitation: Use "File Checksum" if text extraction is not possible.
  • Use Case: Monitoring changes in documents like manuals or policies.
PDF example: a PDF document on the left, and PageCrawl's text diff of the extracted text on the right

Word File

  • Description: Tracks text content within Word documents.
  • Use Case: Ideal for tracking updates in editable text documents.
Word example: a Word document on the left, and PageCrawl's text diff of the extracted text on the right

Excel and CSV Files

  • Description: Monitors content within spreadsheets.
  • Use Case: Useful for tracking data changes in structured formats.
Excel/CSV example: a spreadsheet on the left, and PageCrawl's table diff highlighting the changed cell on the right

File Checksum

  • Description: Computes and compares SHA-256 checksums to detect file changes.
  • Limitation: Does not preview specific changes; manual review required.
  • Use Case: Best for unsupported file formats or non-readable PDFs.
File Checksum example: a download with a SHA-256 hash on the left, and PageCrawl showing the old and new checksum on the right

DNS Records

  • Description: Resolves the domain's live DNS records on every check and alerts you when a value changes. No selector needed: you tick the record types to watch. Raw types are A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, NS, TXT, SOA, CAA, and SRV, alongside the SPF, DKIM, and DMARC email-authentication presets. DKIM asks for your selector (for example google) and reads <selector>._domainkey.<domain>; DMARC reads _dmarc.<domain>; SPF is the v=spf1 record at the domain. MX, NS, TXT, SPF, and DMARC are selected by default.
  • Use Case: Catching a hijacked zone, a rogue mail server, a weakened SPF or DMARC policy, a swapped DKIM key, or an unexpected certificate authority. Every check stores the resolved records as a sorted plain-text list, one record per line, so the change view is a simple before and after and the summary reads like MX changed: 10 aspmx.l.google.com → 10 mx.attacker.net. A DNS monitor takes no screenshot, because no page is fetched: the stored record values are the audit trail.
  • Note: TTLs are never stored, so a countdown alone never counts as a change. Records are sorted, so round-robin reordering never alerts, trailing dots are removed, and the SOA serial number is normalized out. A record type with no records is stored as CAA (none), so a deletion is still a visible change. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are filtered views of your TXT records, so an SPF record is listed once even when TXT is also selected. A wildcard TXT record on the zone can make a DKIM selector you never published look present. A and AAAA records can rotate on their own behind a CDN, so deselect them if you see repeated address-only changes.

WHOIS Record

  • Description: Tracks domain WHOIS registration data including registrar, expiration date, and name servers.
  • Use Case: Monitoring domain ownership changes, expiration dates, or registrar transfers.
WHOIS example: a WHOIS record on the left, and PageCrawl's text diff of the changed expiry date on the right

SEO Tags

  • Description: Tracks key SEO-related elements on a page including the title tag, meta description, canonical URL, robots directives, H1 heading, and Open Graph tags.
  • Use Case: Monitoring competitor SEO changes, ensuring your own pages maintain correct metadata, or detecting unintended SEO regressions.
SEO Tags example: a page's head tags on the left, and PageCrawl's text diff of the changed title tag on the right

JSON Path

  • Description: Extracts and monitors a value from a JSON API response using a JSON path, or tracks the whole JSON document.
  • Use Case: Monitoring API endpoints, status feeds, or config files. Changes are shown as a structured JSON diff.
JSON Path example: a JSON response on the left, and PageCrawl's colour-coded JSON diff showing the changed field on the right

HTTP Status

  • Description: Monitors the HTTP response status code a URL returns (200, 301, 404, 503, and so on).
  • Use Case: Uptime and endpoint health checks. The status is colour-coded by class (2xx, 3xx, 4xx, 5xx) and the previous code is shown when it changes.
HTTP Status example: a health-check endpoint on the left, and PageCrawl showing '200 OK → 503 Service Unavailable' on the right

Redirect

  • Description: Tracks where a URL redirects to and alerts you when the destination changes. No selector needed.
  • Use Case: Catching moved pages, changed affiliate or campaign destinations, and unexpected redirects to error or login pages.

JavaScript

  • Description: Executes a JavaScript function to return results.
  • Skill Level: Requires programming expertise.
  • Use Case: Ideal for advanced users needing custom tracking logic. See the JavaScript Tracked Elements guide for examples.
JavaScript example: selecting the JavaScript element type and entering code in the editor, whose return value is then tracked

Each tracked element type serves a unique purpose. Understanding these differences helps select the right type for specific monitoring needs, ensuring accuracy and reducing false positives. For more detailed guidance, refer to the tooltips within the interface or contact support for assistance.

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