Read This before Considering a Free Website Monitoring Service

While "free" might seem like a good thing, sometimes it really is too good to be true and as many people learn, you get what you pay for. If you're not paying anything, you're probably not getting very much. In fact, some companies lure you in with a "free" service that just can't serve all of your website monitoring needs so you eventually upgrade to the paid plan, and it's not really free after all. In such cases, the rate may have been higher than what it would have been had you gone with a "paid" service to being with. Here are some things to consider before signing up for any "free" website monitoring service.

What Is The Method of Contact?

When it comes to website downtime, every second counts. Most free website monitoring service providers will only contact you via email when your site experiences downtime. If your email servers are down along with your site's servers, then you won't even receive the email until the situation has been resolved. Even if your email is completely separate from your website, unless you check your email every minute of every day, chances are that it will take you some time to become aware of the website downtime – especially if it occurs late at night or in the wee hours of the morning. Paid services, on the other hand, contact customers via phone and SMS text message in addition to email, ensuring that you know of the website downtime the moment it happens.

What is Being Monitored?

When you sign up for a "free" website monitoring service, what exactly is being monitored? Is it just ensuring that your website is up or is it ensuring that every aspect of your site is functional and that your site is performing as it should be? Free services are often inferior in the level of protection they offer, only notifying you if your site goes totally dark, whereas the services you pay for also monitor your site's performance as well as all features and functions of your site.

How Many Locations Are Monitoring Your Website?

What happens if you use a free website monitoring service that only has one server in one location monitoring your site and that location happens to have a server outage or a power outage? Then your site remains unprotected for as long as it takes to resolve the situation. Quality paid website monitoring providers will have multiple servers in multiple locations to ensure consistency in the monitoring of your website.

Quality Insurance is Never Free

The best way to look at website monitoring service is to see it as an insurance policy that helps you minimize the downtime of your site. It is an investment in your site's success. Quality insurance is never free and website downtime is something you want to minimize at all costs. When you compare the amount that downtime costs your company every minute, multiply it by the amount of time that the service saves your site from being down, and then subtract the cost of the website monitoring service, you will soon see that this is actually one service that actually pays for itself.