A method and system are provided for maintaining profiles of information channels available on the Web, wherein the information channels are accessed via pull-only protocols. The method includes monitoring one or more channels by a channel pull action at a monitoring rate, wherein the monitoring rate is determined for the one or more channels based on the number of update events in a previous time period. The method may optimally include filtering the update events in the time period by a novelty measure, wherein the filtering disregards events that do not include significant novel information. The monitoring rate is adapted based on reinforcement learning applying iterative learning rules over time.