These terms show up across the product. You do not need to memorize them; use this page as a reference.
Monitor
A monitor is one URL PingChange checks on a schedule. It can be a normal webpage or an API spec endpoint (for example OpenAPI JSON or YAML). Each monitor has its own schedule, optional region, notification channels, and change history.
Example: You add https://example.com/pricing as a webpage monitor checked every hour. PingChange stores each capture and compares it to the last one.
Snapshot
A snapshot is a single capture of what the URL looked like at check time. For pages that is the rendered content we use for comparison; for API specs it is the normalized text of the specification.
Example: Monday 9:00 and Monday 10:00 each produce one snapshot. If the pricing table changed between those runs, we can show you exactly what moved.
Diff
A diff is the difference between two snapshots, its also called changes. For web pages you see highlighted text and layout changes. For API specs you see structured drift such as new paths, removed fields, or type changes.
Example: The Pro plan price changed from $49 to $59 — the diff calls that out in context instead of only saying “page changed.”
Watch target
The watch target is the part of the page or spec you care about. You can narrow it by drawing a region on the preview (a crop of the page) and, on paid plans, by describing what matters in an AI prompt so alerts focus on those kinds of changes.
Example: You draw a box around the pricing cards, or you write “Alert me when refund policy wording changes.”
Alert
An alert is the message sent when we detect a meaningful change according to your rules. It usually includes a short summary, a link to the full comparison in the dashboard, and sometimes a screenshot when one was captured.
Example: Your Slack channel gets a card: pricing page changed, link opens the diff view.
Channel
A channel is a destination for alerts: email, Slack, Telegram, a webhook, or an automation tool. You create channels once in the dashboard, then attach them to one or many monitors.
Example: A “#competitors” Slack webhook for pricing monitors and a personal email channel for legal pages.
Collection
A collection is a way to group related monitors (for example pricing page, API spec, and changelog for one vendor). Collections stay tidy as your list grows.
Example: “Acme integration” holds three URLs your team checks together.