What is website monitoring?
Website monitoring is the process of automatically checking that a website, page or URL is working. It's an important part of keeping online services available for users and customers. Monitoring your website should be automated so that it runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to ensure that no problems slip through undetected.
Website monitoring is the action of using various tools to ping or check on your webpages and websites in order to ensure they are online and accessible for all visitors. There are many reasons why you may want to monitor your website, but some examples include: checking if your webpage is accessible and present, checking if your e-commerce checkout page works. There are many other uses for website monitoring and these examples only scratch the surface of what you can monitor.
Website monitoring is a rather easy thing to do, but there are quite a few things you have to take into account. First of all, the website owner or someone who does not know how to set up a website monitoring service should contact a professional company that already did it before. That way the process will be faster and more efficient. Website monitoring will enable you to track the site's uptime, and downtime.
You should use a service that automatically calculates your downtime. You can do this by looking at how stable your site is over time and noticing when there are periods of downtime longer than normal. If you notice that your site has been offline for more than about 30 minutes you should contact your hosting company.
Website monitoring services basic vs advanced
Basic website monitoring services are ideal for individuals just looking to have their website monitored. Basic services provide an email alert if your web site is down, otherwise they are great tools to monitor the uptime of your website.
Advanced website monitoring services offer advanced alerting options such as SMS (text messaging), Slack or Telegram integrations. These types of services have a lot features about monitoring. Advanced services will typically be found in corporate environments where uptime is critical for business operations.
Basic - Email alerts sent when your web site is down or if it is unreachable. Basic services typically provide small amount of additional information such as page load time, availability, and a short description of the problem.
Advanced - These services give you full control over your custom alerts via a web-based user interface. Advanced services provide advanced information such as page load time, status code & description of error message, response times by country and state, cached pages etc.
Why do you need website monitoring?
Website monitoring is a service in which regular automated checks are performed against a website in order to determine whether the site is up or down. This type of service can be useful both from the standpoint of end users and webmasters. If you have a website that your customers need to check, for example an e-commerce store, then you will want to ensure that the website is working properly when potential customers try to access it.
Website Monitoring has many key benefits for both end users and webmasters. A few of the major reasons to use a service like this are:
- To be notified when your site goes down.
- To be notified when your site comes back up.
- To verify that your e-commerce store is safe to use - Site owners can use website monitoring services to be certain their sites are protected, just in case there's a security vulnerability.
- Monitor the speed of your website– If you have a large audience, it may take your website longer to load. With a monitoring service, you can get an accurate report on your site's speed and ensure that it's running smoothly.
For example, if you want to monitor the performance of your website it is important that you have a system in place that can measure how fast or slow each page loads. You can use Google Analytics for this purpose which will show you information on traffic to your site and where visitors are coming from among other things. It is also necessary to check the uptime of your site since you want to know when it goes down.
On the other hand, if you are in charge of maintaining a website for your company, you'll want to find out about any downtime as soon as possible so that you can get things up and running again. Because this can help save time and money, webmasters often choose the website monitoring service.
Which website monitoring service is best?
In order to choose the best website monitoring service for your company, there are several key factors that should be considered:
- Customizable alerts – How will you be notified when your site goes down? Different services have different alert options, so it's important to find one that does what you need.
- Ease of use – Some services are more intuitive than others, so this is something to consider as well. In the end, website monitoring should make your life easier, not more complicated.
- Advanced features – How often do you need to monitor your site? In addition to the daily and weekly checks, some services offer up-to-the minute stats on how well your website is performing.
- Customer service – Websites can be a bit unpredictable at times, but that shouldn't stop them from providing excellent customer service. It's important to find a monitoring company that is responsive and addresses any concerns you may have in a timely manner.
- Cost – There are several factors that affect the price of website monitoring services, including how often you need your site monitored and which specific features you want included. You should be able to get an accurate estimate of the cost for your service based on what you need.
How to set up website monitoring?
When you set up website monitoring, the first step is to choose a website monitor tool. There are many web-based tools available for this which you can use to run automated tests of your site. Your choice will depend on how much control you want over the testing process, and what features are important to you, such as uptime statistics.
Think about what information you would like to receive beyond just whether or not your site is up. Some services will send alerts on things such as uptime history and average page load times. If you have any specific questions about how to set this up, be sure to get in touch with the company you are using.
Once you have chosen your website monitoring service, setting up an account with a website monitoring service is usually quick and easy, but there are some things to keep in mind while doing so.
- First, make sure the company offers the features you want at a price you can afford.
- Next, choose a time interval for checking your site. Most services allow you to check your sites daily, weekly and even hourly if necessary.
- decide how you want to be notified when there's an issue with your site and what defines "an issue" for you (e.g., downtime of more than five minutes).
- Finally, think about what information you would like to receive beyond just whether or not your site is up. Some services will send alerts on things such as uptime history and average page load times. If you have any specific questions about how to set this up, be sure to get in touch with the company you are using.
Now, you are ready to start monitoring! The company will check your site at regular intervals and contact you if they find any problems that need to be addressed.
If you want to get the most out of your website monitoring service, there are some things that every user should do:
- First, make sure that you're using the full capabilities of whatever service you choose. For example, if your provider sends an e-mail when your site goes offline, make sure you are checking your email on a regular basis.
- Finally, think about how you can use this information in the future. For example, review your uptime history to see if there are any recurring issues or look at the average load time of your site to see if it's faster than usual. By getting a better idea of how your site performs now you can make future changes for the better.
Note: Most people prefer website monitoring tools that offer a free trial (or, at the very least, a money-back guarantee) because this allows you to try the service before paying for it.
