Paid Website Monitoring Service: The Best Things in Life Aren't Always Free

There's a saying that the best things in life are free, but that's not always the case. While there are indeed great things that you can get in life without paying a dime for them, website monitoring service just isn't one of them. Here's what you need to keep in mind if you've been considering a free website monitor to stay on top of your website downtime.

Why Isn't Free a Good Thing?

Free can be a good thing, but not when it comes to something as important as the monitoring of your site's uptime and performance. Free website monitoring services are usually "bare bones" services that don't really provide you with the level of service that you need to properly monitor your site. Rather, they are a "bait" to lure you into using the service with the hope that you will upgrade to a paid service at some point in the near future.

What Does Free Website Monitoring Service Really Offer?

Let's say you do settle for a free website monitoring service to begin with. Chances are your site will be checked every 30 minutes or so, as opposed to a quality website monitor that will check your site as often as every minute. When you consider that every minute of downtime can cost your business money, it becomes quite apparent that the difference between checking every 60 seconds and checking every half hour is quite significant to your bottom line.

Another difference between paid website monitoring services and a free website monitor is how the service alerts you when your site goes down. Oftentimes when your site's server goes down your email server goes down with it. If the only method of contact from the website monitor is email, you won't get that email until the situation has already been resolved and your site is back up and running. What you need is a quality website monitoring service that alerts you via phone and SMS text message in addition to email.

The Bottom Line

You get what you pay for when it comes to quality services. No one provides valuable services for free. Quality website monitoring is an investment in your business – an investment that can pay for itself over time. Before settling for the services of a free website monitor, make sure you understand the difference between what that service has to offer and what a quality paid website monitoring service can provide.