Need to archive competitor website versions daily? This tutorial shows how to build a daily website snapshot workflow in Needle that stores historical copies for analysis.

Overview

The workflow automatically captures and archives website snapshots every day, building a historical record—creating a time machine for competitor intelligence and market research.

Key Actions

1. Scheduled Daily Trigger – Runs every day at a set time
2. Website Capture – Fetches full page content, HTML, and metadata
3. Storage – Saves snapshot to database or cloud storage
4. Versioning – Maintains chronological archive with timestamps
5. Optional Comparison – Flags days when changes occurred

What You'll Need

• Target URLs – List of pages to archive (pricing, features, about pages) Tip: Store snapshots of your own site too for historical reference
• Storage – Database, Google Sheets, or cloud storage (S3, Drive)
• Retention Policy – How long to keep snapshots (e.g., 1 year)

How It Works

Every day at midnight:

1. The workflow retrieves your URL list from Google Sheets or config
2. For each URL:
   • Fetches the complete page content
   • Extracts:
     • Full HTML
     • Visible text content
     • Key structured data (pricing tables, features lists)
     • Meta tags and page title
     • Screenshots (optional)
3. Snapshot is stored with metadata:
   • URL
   • Timestamp
   • Content hash (for quick change detection)
   • Full HTML
   • Extracted text
   • Structured data (JSON)
4. Quick change check:
   • Compares content hash to yesterday's snapshot
   • If different, flags "Change Detected"
5. Data stored in structured format:

   competitor_snapshots/
     2025-10-01/
       competitor-a-pricing.html
       competitor-a-pricing.json
       competitor-b-features.html
       competitor-b-features.json
   

6. Weekly/monthly reports can be generated showing timeline of changes

Use Cases:

• Track pricing evolution over time
• Monitor competitor feature launches
• Analyze messaging changes
• Document market trends
• Support competitive positioning decisions

Wrap-up

With this Needle workflow, you build a comprehensive historical archive of competitor websites—enabling trend analysis, competitive research, and strategic planning based on actual data, not memory. Perfect for product strategy teams, market analysts, and anyone tracking competitive landscapes.