Website Change Monitoring
Your website changes. Your legal texts do not follow on their own.
New services, new features, a restructured offering: changes to your website can create a new need to review the legal texts — and usually nobody notices. TermShelf evaluates monitored websites, can detect changes that relate to your texts, captures the supporting quote and turns it into a review finding in your process. Available today as a beta and under active development.
What is Website Change Monitoring?
- Website Change Monitoring (Beta)
- Website Change Monitoring is the WebsiteChange signal of TermShelf Document Intelligence and is currently available as a beta. TermShelf visits a monitored website on a plan-dependent cadence, captures publicly visible content and detected services and checks whether that creates a possible need to review the published legal texts — on the first run as a check of what is already there, afterwards also as a comparison with the previous state. The result is an evidence-backed review finding. TermShelf makes no legal determination, does not review the website legally in full and changes nothing on its own.
Product status
Website Change Monitoring is available as a beta.
The signal exists, it is usable and it is part of the plan from Starter upwards. At the same time it is labelled beta and under active development: detection, assessment and the degree of automation can still change or be limited in individual cases. We would rather label that than leave it unsaid — the other Document Intelligence signals are not affected.
Beta applies to this signal only
Legal Change Monitoring and Legal Content Drift do not carry this status, and neither does Document Intelligence as a whole. The label refers specifically to Website Change Monitoring.
Three things that are not the same here
- Product capability
- What Website Change Monitoring can do: evaluate a monitored website, evidence recognisable facts and derive a possible need to review the published legal texts.
- Check cadence in the plan
- How often the website check is scheduled by plan — from every two weeks to daily, with an on-demand check on higher plans.
- Scope actually switched on
- What really runs in your workspace: the assessment of website changes is enabled explicitly, requires a brand profile you approved, and is being rolled out gradually.
What that means in practice
- The functional scope keeps growing; individual assessment steps can still change.
- Not every run produces a result — uncertain cases deliberately stay open instead of becoming a review item.
- The automatic assessment is opt-in and is being rolled out workspace by workspace.
- The evidence rules, limits and approval steps on this page apply unchanged — beta relaxes none of them.
Legal texts rarely age because someone edits them.
They age because the reality they describe moves on. A service is added, a provider is swapped, a form is new, an offering is restructured — and the text stays exactly as it was.
Website Change Monitoring aims at exactly that gap: watching what is publicly visible, with the question of whether the published texts still cover it.
The change happens in the product, not in the document
A feature release, a new payment or analytics service, an extra upload: those steps rarely pass through legal, yet they change the reality you describe in public.
Nobody owns "does this matter?"
Product knows what is new. Legal knows what the text says. The question in between — whether the one creates a need to review the other — often has no fixed home.
The gap shows up late
Months can pass between a change on the website and the next deliberate look at the legal texts. By then the gap is usually noticed from the outside, not from within.
Asking around does not scale
"Did anything change on your side that affects the texts?" is an honest question — but it spreads the uncertainty instead of turning it into an evidenced review item.
The core idea
Your website is not only a delivery target — it is also a signal source.
In most setups the website is where legal texts end up. TermShelf additionally treats it as a source: what is publicly stated there about products, services and processes is the most visible description of the business reality your legal texts are meant to reflect. When that description changes, it is a lead — not a verdict.
The website receives legal texts.
The approved version is published and embedded. Whether it still matches reality is checked only when someone thinks to ask.
The website also tells you what changed.
New services, new features, new offerings become public there first. That is exactly where a possible need for review can be derived before anyone reports it manually.
That is the essential difference from the live check: in a live check the legal text itself is the object under review. In website change monitoring it is the reality the legal text is meant to describe.
Two check situations
Useful from the first scan — not only after months of history.
On the first run there is no earlier state to compare against. Rather than doing nothing, TermShelf answers the question a first scan can answer: what is on the website today that the published legal texts may not reflect? From the second run onwards, the change between two states is added.
Check what is already there
website today
recognisable facts and contexts
compared with the published texts
possible need for review
Nothing changed here — the website and the text may simply never have matched. TermShelf therefore calls this a website check, not a website change.
Detect what changed
previous state
current state
relevant change
supporting quote
possible need for review
The comparison runs between two completed checks of the same website. It looks at new or substantively changed pages as well as detected services and embeds that appeared or disappeared.
The distinction stays visible inside the product: a result from the first run is never presented as a change, and a result from the comparison is never presented as a first inventory.
A website change and legal content drift are two different questions.
Both watch the website. But they look at different things — and they lead to different work. That is why TermShelf keeps them as separate signals.
Has the visible reality changed enough that the legal texts should be reviewed?
Example: an additional service appears on the website that was not described before.
The object is what the legal text is meant to describe: products, services, processes, offerings. The outcome is a substantive question about the text.
Is the legal text published live still the approved version?
Example: the embedded privacy policy is incomplete or is being served in an older version.
The object is the legal text itself and how it is delivered. The outcome is often a technical or operational answer — republish, repair the embed.
The rule of thumb
Website change monitoring concerns the reality the legal text is meant to describe. Legal content drift concerns the delivery of the legal text itself.
And how does it relate to Legal Change Monitoring?
Legal Change Monitoring starts from the legal framework and is anchored to the brand — it needs no monitored website. Website Change Monitoring starts from one concrete monitored website and follows that website's check cadence. One watches the rules, the other watches your own reality.
Legal Change Monitoring in detailWhat teams use Website Change Monitoring for
SaaS: a new integration or service
An additional integration goes live and is described on the website. Instead of noticing it at the next audit, you get an evidenced finding with the exact location.
E-commerce: a changed scope of service
Checkout, shipping options or the service scope change. The finding names which published document type may not cover the new state.
Multi-brand: only one brand is affected
When only one of several presences gains a new feature, the review item is created only there — not as a blanket question to every brand.
International: keep market versions apart
When one market's website version changes, the review item stays with that website instead of touching every language version at once.
Product teams: make rollouts visible
A feature rollout changes the publicly described product reality. The need for review becomes a structured item rather than a footnote in a release ticket.
Legal & compliance: evidenced items instead of round-robin questions
Instead of periodically asking whether anything changed, findings arrive with location, quote and status in the review process.
How TermShelf helps
Website Change Monitoring is a chain with clear hand-off points — and the last step always belongs to a person.
Website checks on a fixed cadence
A monitored website is visited and evaluated regularly, depending on the plan. Higher plans check more often and additionally allow an on-demand check.
Useful from the first run
Even the first run compares recognisable facts with the published legal texts instead of merely establishing a baseline.
Only your own website as a source
Pages of the monitored website itself are evaluated. Third-party domains and your own legal pages are excluded — the latter would be circular.
Evidence rather than assertions
Every detected fact needs a location and a verbatim quote from the captured content. What cannot be evidenced is rejected.
Assessed against the delivered version
The comparison runs against the texts the brand actually publishes — with text blocks and brand-specific variations resolved, not against a template.
Uncertain stays uncertain
Ambiguous outcomes are carried as items for a human to look at and trigger no automatic follow-up.
Switched on deliberately
The website check and its assessment have to be enabled explicitly and can be turned off again at any time. The basis is a brand profile you have approved.
What Website Change Monitoring does not do
- It does not review your website in full against legal requirements and promises no compliance.
- It does not promise to detect every change on the website — scope and visibility are bounded.
- It does not determine that a detected change requires an edit to your legal texts.
- It changes and publishes no legal texts on its own — adoption and approval stay explicit decisions.
- It does not capture content loaded only in the browser, nor anything behind a login.
- It does not provide legal advice and is not a substitute for qualified counsel.
- It is not the same as the live check, which is about the delivery of the legal text itself.
Evidence
A finding should show what it rests on.
An alert that "something is different" helps nobody. Website signals have one advantage over other triggers: the basis is publicly visible and can be named — the page, the location, the literal wording. A finding carries that evidence so the assessment stays reviewable.
- What was detected?
- A named fact about your own website — an additional service, a new feature or a changed offering, for example.
- Where was it found?
- The specific page of the monitored website on which the fact is visible.
- Which wording supports it?
- A verbatim quote from the captured page content — not a summary.
- Why could it matter?
- Which published document type may not cover the fact — as a review question, never as a determination.
"New: appointments can now be synced straight to your calendar."
Found on: /product
Evidence is also the brake
The evidence requirement works in both directions. A fact whose quote cannot be found verbatim in the captured page content is rejected. And the judgement that a point is already covered only holds with a traceable passage from the document in question — otherwise the case stays open as unclear. Uncertain outcomes surface for a human to look at and trigger no automatic follow-up.
What stays invisible
- Content that is only loaded in the browser is not captured by the check.
- Areas behind a login and pages that cannot be reached technically stay out of scope.
- Only pages of the monitored website itself are considered; third-party domains are excluded.
- Your own legal pages are deliberately not used as a source for website facts.
- A bounded amount of page content is evaluated per run — not the entire website.
Example sequence
Between the release and the legal text, there is usually nobody.
A deliberately abstract sequence. It shows the mechanism, not a checklist of obligations.
- Website
- describes service A
- Legal text
- describes service A
- Website
- describes service A and the new service B
- Legal text
- unchanged — still describes service A only
On the next check TermShelf can spot the change, capture the supporting quote and flag a possible need for review.
That becomes a review item
review finding
human review
proposed change if applicable
draft
approval
Illustrative. Whether such a change actually requires an edit is a professional and legal decision — prepared here, not taken here.
From the website to a review item — in separate steps.
Each step has its own purpose and its own hand-off point. The path does not end in the text; it ends at a decision.
Always first
website check
relevant change
evidenced location
possible link to a legal text
review finding
human review
Up to here nothing in the document changes. A finding can be confirmed, parked or dismissed — with status, ownership and history. Even the decision that nothing needs doing stays traceable.
When confirmed and included in the plan
confirmed finding
proposed change
draft
approval
publication
Website Change Monitoring starts earlier than the proposal workflow: findings exist as soon as a website is monitored — pre-drafted proposed changes are part of the plan from Professional upwards. Without that tier the findings stay fully readable and workable; only the proposals are not created.
Some signals are not aimed at a legal text.
When a recognisable statement on the website diverges from what your brand profile records, that is first of all a hint about the profile — not about a document. Such cases are carried explicitly as a profile review and are never forced into a proposed change to a legal text.
A website observation on its own changes no legal text.
A website signal does not quietly turn into a draft wording. A finding has to be confirmed, and where TermShelf starts preparing a proposal, the underlying classification is recorded as a system decision — visible as exactly that, not as human approval and not as a legal assessment. Draft, review and publication stay separate, explicit steps.
What Website Change Monitoring explicitly is not.
Two misunderstandings are close at hand — one underrates the feature, the other overrates it. Both describe something other than what TermShelf does.
Not every edit is a change worth reviewing.
A classic diff answers which characters or page regions changed — and reports every relaunch, every new headline, every swapped image. This is the other question: is there a recognisable change that raises a review question for the published legal texts? Pure layout and marketing edits create no review item.
Not a complete review of your website.
TermShelf examines recognisable facts for a possible need to review existing legal texts. That is explicitly not a complete legal examination of the website, not an assurance that everything relevant is found, and not legal advice. What is found is a reason to look — TermShelf claims nothing beyond that.
Check cadence
The plan sets how often the website is checked.
Website Change Monitoring has no cadence of its own. It runs along with the website check: where a monitored website exists and the check runs on a cadence, website signals are produced too. Higher plans check more often, monitor more websites and additionally allow an on-demand check.
Included from Starter upwards. Free carries no monitored website and therefore no website check.
Starter
Website check
every 2 weeks
Monitored websites
1
Professional
Website check
weekly
Monitored websites
5
Business
Website check
daily + manual
Monitored websites
15
Agency
Website check
daily + manual
Monitored websites
50
Enterprise
Website check
daily + manual / prioritized
Monitored websites
Custom
What a cadence means
- TermShelf runs the website check at this rhythm.
- A tighter cadence surfaces a possible need for review earlier.
- From the second run onwards the current state is also compared with the previous one.
What it does not mean
- Not that every change on the website is detected.
- Not that everything technically present is visible to the check.
- Not that a detected change actually requires an edit to a text.
What a monitored website is
A monitored website is a web presence TermShelf visits and evaluates regularly — the basis for the website check, for website changes and for the live check of your published legal texts. The more separate presences you want watched, the more monitoring targets you need.
Plain delivery does not count against it: legal texts can be delivered to websites you do not have monitored. And Legal Change Monitoring is anchored to the brand — it needs no monitored website at all.
Three signals, one loop.
Website Change Monitoring watches your own reality. Two further signals watch the legal framework and the actual delivery.
- LegalChange
When the legal context changes.
Public legal sources are followed and consolidated into change events — assessed against your brands and published documents.
- WebsiteChange
When the business reality changes.
On a monitored website, new services, features or offerings stand out — raising the question of whether the published texts still cover them.
- Legal Content Drift
When the published version diverges.
The live check verifies that what is publicly visible really is the approved version — per website, language and market.
Frequently asked questions
- What is website change monitoring?
- Website Change Monitoring is the WebsiteChange signal of TermShelf Document Intelligence. TermShelf visits a monitored website on a plan-dependent cadence, captures publicly visible content and detected services and checks whether that creates a possible need to review the published legal texts. The result is a review finding with the location and a verbatim quote — no legal determination and no automatic edit.
- What does TermShelf watch on my website?
- Publicly reachable pages of the monitored website and the services and embeds recognisable there — payment, analytics or marketing services, for example — as well as statements about products, features and offerings. Your own legal pages and third-party domains are excluded. A bounded amount of page content is evaluated per run.
- Is this just a normal website diff?
- No. A diff reports which characters or page regions changed. This is about whether a recognisable change raises a review question for the published legal texts. Pure layout or marketing edits therefore create no review item.
- What happens on the first scan?
- On the first run there is no earlier state to compare against. Instead, TermShelf checks what is already there: which recognisable facts are on the website today that the published legal texts may not reflect? Results are carried explicitly as a website check and never presented as a change — because nothing changed.
- Does TermShelf detect every change on my website?
- No, and that cannot be promised. Content loaded only in the browser, areas behind a login and pages that cannot be reached technically stay invisible; a bounded amount of page content is evaluated per run. The goal is to surface a possible need for review earlier — not to promise completeness.
- What happens when a change may be relevant?
- A review finding is created with the location, a verbatim quote and the question of which published document type may not cover the new state. It can be confirmed, parked or dismissed — with status, ownership and history. Nothing in the document itself changes in the process.
- Are my legal texts changed automatically because of it?
- No. A website observation on its own changes no legal text. Even a proposed change prepared from one is never applied automatically and never published automatically: it lands as an unpublished draft in the existing approval workflow and is only adopted after an explicit decision.
- What is the difference to legal content drift?
- Website change monitoring concerns the reality the legal text is meant to describe: an additional service appears on the website, and the question is whether the texts still cover it. Legal content drift concerns the delivery of the legal text itself: the version visible live no longer matches the approved one. One raises a substantive question, the other a delivery question.
- What is the difference to legal change monitoring?
- Legal Change Monitoring watches the legal framework: public legal sources are followed and assessed against your brands. It is anchored to the brand and needs no monitored website. Website Change Monitoring watches your own reality on one concrete monitored website and follows that website's check cadence.
- How often is the website checked?
- The cadence depends on the plan and ranges from every two weeks to daily; higher plans additionally allow an on-demand check. Website Change Monitoring has no cadence of its own — it runs along with the website check. The cadence describes how often the check runs and says nothing about whether a change is detected or legally relevant.
- What is a monitored website?
- A monitored website is a web presence TermShelf visits and evaluates regularly — the basis for the website check, for website changes and for the live check of your published legal texts. It is a plan limit of its own: the more separate presences you want watched, the more monitoring targets you need. Plain delivery through the Public Delivery API does not count against it.
- Does website change monitoring need AI?
- Yes, for the substantive part. Which pages are evaluated at all, which exclusions apply and which services are technically detected is decided by rules. Whether a fact is present and whether the published texts cover it is assessed with language-model support and tied to verifiable quotes. Without an available model the substantive check does not run — TermShelf does not fall back to word lists for it.
- Is this a complete legal review of my website?
- No. TermShelf examines recognisable facts for a possible need to review existing legal texts. That is not a complete legal examination of the website, not a compliance assurance and not legal advice. The assessment remains a professional and legal decision.
Read on
- Feature: Document Intelligence — all three change signals
- Feature: Legal Change Monitoring — the LegalChange signal
- Feature: Legal Content Drift Scanner — the live check
- Guide: Your website changed — should the legal content be reviewed?
- Guide: Website change or legal content drift?
- Pricing: monitored websites and check cadences per plan
- Help: Document Intelligence analysis runs
- Glossary: website change monitoring & review finding
Let website change arrive where your texts already live.
Have TermShelf watch a monitored website and evidence what it could mean for your legal texts — and decide yourself what follows from it.