I am interested in receiving an email ("email alert" or notification)
from websites that don't have RSS, when new content is added to the web site.
For instance, I want to know by email whenever a particular company
posts new information in its NEWS page or its PRODUCTS page. If these
pages don't have RSS or any internal "news alert" service, is there
anyway I can use software or a
Google enhancement to receive updates of web pages?  In terms of
software I am interested in freeware products if available.  Also, I
would be thrilled to hear that I can get these updates or alert-type
emails sent directly to my gmail account.

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Request for Question Clarification by palitoy-ga on 19 Feb 2006 04:21 PST

Hello pinkupansa-ga,

Is this the kind of service that you require?
http://www.changedetection.com/monitor.html

This site allows you to monitor individual webpages on the internet
and sends you and email when the page is updated.  You cannot tell the
website to just monitor one website, you need to tell it each page on
the website that you wish to monitor.

Let me know if this solves your question.

palitoy-ga

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Clarification of Question by pinkupansa-ga on 21 Feb 2006 09:57 PST

palitoy-ga:

I haven't tried it [http://www.changedetection.com/monitor.html] yet
but it seems like it will work. It does say that it will notify of
changes "once a day."

I was more interested in learning of changes "as it happens." Do you
know if there is a way to set up a kind of "pull" request using Google
Alerts and assume that the site to be pulled from doesn't offer its
own RSS?

If such a thing doesn't exist I am satisfied then with www.changedetection.

Thank you.

Hello pinkupansa-ga,

Thank-you for accepting my suggestion of ChangeDetection.com as an
answer to your problem.

Unfortunately it would be impossible to set up a system that detects
changes as they happen unless you were the owner of the website.  A
system that did this would need to go to the webpage every minute of
the day to check whether things had changed (as it would have no way
of knowing whether the owner had altered anything).  If you were the
owner of the website it is easy as you know when you have altered
something and can easily update your RSS/XML file without having to
keep checking!  Google Alerts works in a similar way to
ChangeDetection and is not constantly checking the sites it is
monitoring but does this on a time schedule (that is it checks the
site every x minutes).

I have found ChangeDetection an excellent service and have been using
it for several years.  It never misses an update (as far as I am
aware) and always seems to notify you within 24 hours if something has
changed.

If you have several RSS/XML newsfeeds that you wish to check for
changes you may be interested in http://www.Bloglines.com.  This
service allows you to subscribe to as many or as few RSS newsfeeds as
you want.  It collects the latest news items for you but unfortunately
does not send you an email.  If my memory serves me right there is a
Firefox extension that will tell you if you have unread news items in
your Bloglines account whilst you have your Firefox internet browser
open.  You may wish to look into Bloglines as an additional service.

If you have any further questions or queries on this subject please do
not hesitate to ask for clarification.

Your explanation and research is much appreciated. ChangeDetection.com
is the way to go until all web sites have RSS or email alerts set up
of their own.

I am most satisified w/ your answers.

Thank you,

pinkupansa

Thanks for the 5-star rating, kind comments and tip!  They are all appreciated.