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What to do when a watched page stops checking
Check failed, Needs attention, and the Need attention tile on the dashboard. What each one means, the usual causes, and how to put it right.
Updated November 9, 2026
Watch how, in a short video
Sometimes a check doesn't work. A competitor moves a page, their site goes down for an afternoon, or they start blocking automated requests. Rival Radar tells you rather than quietly going silent, because a watched page that stopped working looks exactly like a competitor who stopped changing.
There are two levels to it. A single failure shows as Check failed on the page. Three failures in a row marks the page Needs attention and counts it in the Need attention tile on your dashboard.
Step by step
Look at the dashboard tile
Need attention turns red with a count when at least one page is failing its checks. Green and showing OK means everything is checking fine.
Find the page
The Watched pages section underneath lists every page with its status. A failing page is also marked on the competitor's own screen with a red edge and Needs attention.
Read the reason
Under Check failed is the reason, in the site's own terms: blocked, timed out, a network error, or an error returned by the site.
Open the page yourself
Click the address to see where it goes. A page that 404s in your own browser has moved, and that's the most common cause by a long way.
Correct the address
Click the URL on the competitor's screen to edit it in place, paste in the new one, and save.
Check it works
Press Scan now underneath. You'll see each step as it happens: fetching the page, cleaning up the content, comparing to the last check.
If it still fails, tell us
Once a page has failed several times in a row, the message offers a link to contact us. Use it. Some sites need handling on our side.
What each reason means
- The site appears to be blocking automated requests. Their bot protection turned us away. Pages are fetched through a proxy service that gets past most of it, but some sites are stricter than others.
- The request timed out. Their page took too long. Usually temporary, and often clears on its own.
- The site returned an error. A 404, 500 or similar. A 404 almost always means the page has moved.
- A network error occurred. Their site or the route to it was unreachable at that moment.
- Today's scan limit has been reached. Not their fault or yours. It clears on its own, and scheduled checks pick up again.
A failed check counts as a check, so the page waits out its normal interval before being tried again. On a page set to Every week that is a long time to sit broken, so press Scan now once you have fixed the address rather than waiting.
What doesn't count as a failure
No changes since watching began is a success. So is No changes since the last check. Both mean the page was fetched and compared and was the same as before.
Not checked yet on a page you've just added means its first check is running. It should clear within a few minutes.
If a competitor blocks us for good
A handful of sites are built to keep every automated reader out, and no amount of retrying changes that. When that's the case, there are still things worth doing.
- Watch a different page on the same site. Blocking is often applied unevenly, and a changelog or careers page may be left open when the pricing page isn't.
- Check their History card. Earlier versions from the Internet Archive don't depend on us being able to fetch the page now.
- Swap the slot for a competitor you can actually watch. A page that never checks is worth less than one that does.
Questions
Will I be emailed when a page starts failing?
No. Alerts are for changes a competitor made, not for our own plumbing. The dashboard's Need attention tile is where to look, and it's worth a glance when a competitor has gone unusually quiet.
Do I lose my history when a page fails?
No. Everything recorded before the failure stays. The page just has a gap for however long it wasn't working.
Why did a page clear itself without me doing anything?
Because the next check worked. One successful check clears the failure count and the Needs attention mark straight away.
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