How can I tell whether website content has changed?¶

Compare preserved versions of the same digital object and explain the reliability of each version. Similar-looking URLs do not always return the same content.

Establish a valid comparison¶

Use the complete URL, hostname, account state, language, location and time. A page may be personalised, generated from a database or changed by query parameters. Capture the present version before continuing.

Historic versions may come from web archives, platform revision history, backups, caches, screenshots, monitoring, communications or local files. Revision history can show text edits and responsible accounts; a screenshot records appearance but not underlying data; an archive may omit dynamic elements.

Think of comparing editions of a document: both the page number and edition date must match before a difference can be interpreted.

Describe the change precisely - text added, image removed, payment destination altered, file replaced or page redirected. Record the earliest source showing the new state and latest source showing the old state.

A difference does not identify who made it. Publishing logs, administrator access, messages and device evidence may attribute the change. Automated feeds, scheduled updates and compromise remain possible explanations.