Why Continuous Website Accessibility Monitoring Matters
A site that passed a test in January can fail in March. A new plugin adds an unlabeled form field, a marketing team uploads images without alt text, a theme update changes the focus styles. None of these are decisions anyone made about accessibility, and a one-time audit cannot catch them.
The W3C’s overview of evaluating web accessibility treats testing as something you plan for as part of building and maintaining a site, not a single event (W3C WAI (opens in a new tab)). Scheduled monitoring is the practical version of that for small teams: a regular, automatic check with a record of the results.
How Scheduled Accessibility Monitoring Works in AccessBell
Scheduled monitoring runs on your monitored pages without anyone starting it. Each run uses the domain’s current settings, including devices, the standard and any custom headers needed to reach staging or protected pages. A domain’s overview always shows the next scheduled scan.
- Pages are found from your XML sitemap, robots.txt and the links on your home page, and you can add pages by hand or exclude sections with URL rules. See URL monitoring for how to choose up to 500 URLs per domain.
- Staging and password-protected sites can be scanned with custom HTTP headers, so you can test before launch.
- PDFs linked from your pages are listed on a Documents tab and checked separately.
- Monitoring pauses if the subscription is not active, and restarts on the next daily run when it is.
Accessibility Alerts and Scan History That Show Progress
Alerts are deliberately narrow. AccessBell emails the account owner and admins when a scheduled scan finds a critical or serious issue that was not on the page before. It does not email about problems that were already known, or about minor ones, so an alert means something changed.
Every scan is saved. The domain overview charts your score, open issues and pages scanned over 7, 30 or 90 days, and each page has its own history. The same history feeds the Compliance Vault, where it becomes dated evidence of your work.
What to Do When Monitoring Finds a New Issue
Open the issue to see the failing element, the WCAG criteria it relates to and how to fix it. For missing alt text, unnamed buttons and links, unlabeled fields and a missing page language, you can type the correct text once and AccessBell writes the corrected code, or applies it with AccessBellFix. The next scheduled scan confirms the fix and logs it as resolved.
What Continuous Monitoring Can and Cannot Do
Automated scans detect many, but not all, WCAG failures. Keyboard flows, meaningful alt text and screen reader behavior still need a person to review, and AccessBell lists the checks that need manual testing. Monitoring documents your effort and catches regressions; it does not guarantee legal compliance. See our methodology and disclaimer.
Learn More About Continuous Monitoring
Continuous Monitoring: Frequently Asked Questions
What is continuous website accessibility monitoring?
Automatically rescanning your site on a schedule, comparing each result with the last, and alerting you when something new fails. It catches problems introduced by new content, plugins and releases between audits.
How often does AccessBell scan my site?
Every monitored page is rescanned once a day, starting at 06:00 UTC, and you can scan at any time with Scan now. Rescans are unlimited under fair use.
How many pages can I monitor?
Up to 500 pages per domain. AccessBell finds pages from your sitemap and links, and you choose which ones to monitor.
Who gets the email alerts?
The account owner and admins. They are emailed after a scheduled scan when a critical or serious issue appears that was not in the page’s previous scan.
Can AccessBell monitor a staging site?
Yes. Add custom HTTP headers in the domain settings and AccessBell can scan staging, pre-launch and protected pages.