Frequently Asked Questions - What is Nerd Crawler and How Does It Work?

Welcome to our Frequently Asked Questions blog post, where we aim to address the most common inquiries about Nerd Crawler in a comprehensive and easy-to-understand way. Whether you're a new to Nerd Crawler or part of our community but looking for some clarification, this post will provide you with answers to your burning questions. Read on to learn more about Nerd Crawler and find answers to the queries you may have.

Why was Nerd Crawler built and how does it work?

Nerd Crawler was built because we wanted to know when new original comic art was ready to buy from our favorite artists and dealers, but we were wasting so much time refreshing sites so we wanted to find a way to automate this. We developed a proprietary technology to crawl for updates on our favorite original comic art sites, and now we're making it available for other comic art fans to use!

Is Nerd Crawler free to use?

Yes! Nerd Crawler has a free plan that you can use to get daily updates on your favorite sites. However, since most products sell out quickly, we recommend upgrading to the Starter or Founder's Plan to get real-time alerts, text alerts, and more!

What is the difference between the Starter Plan and Founder's Plan?

Both unlock the ability to receive text messages, Slack, and Discord alerts and the option to get real-time alerts, which is necessary if you're a serious art collector. But, the Founder's Plan charges a flat monthly fee regardless of the number of active alerts you have on your account while the Starter Plan charges per active alert (crawlers and saved searches) per month. Put another way, the Starter Plan is great if you have fewer than 25 active alerts, but once you have more than that, we recommend upgrading to the Founder's Plan to save money.

What does crawling mean and what is a crawler?

A "crawl" is defined as every time we check a website to see if there's an update. When we crawl and detect an update to the page you wanted us to crawl, we'll email you. You can also receive text message alerts when an update is detected by upgrading to any of our paid plans. When you tell us what site page you want us to monitor and how often you want us to check it, you've made a "crawler".

How often can I crawl a page on a website?

Free users can crawl a page once per day. If you upgrade to a paid plan, you will have more options including real-time crawling which will help you get the rarest pieces of art.

Can I test if my crawler works without being charged?

Yes! You can manually test any crawler at any time when you create an account. Test crawls are always free no matter what plan you're on. Test crawls may not send an alert if there is no update detected.

I received an alert but nothing new was on the site?

This can happen for a variety of reasons including 1) items on the page were edited, removed, or sold out but no new items were added and 2) an update was detected but someone already bought the new item and it was removed before you visited the site. If you think there's a bug with your crawlers, please email us right away at [email protected].

You're missing a site I use. Can you add it?

Yes! Please email your site request to [email protected]. Our product is built by comic art fans so we'd be happy to investigate and add your site if possible.