What You Want (and Don't Want) From a Website Monitoring Service

When it comes to the monitoring of your website, it's crucial that you understand not all website monitoring services are created equal. The fact of the matter is that downtime equates to lost profits and one of the most important weapons in your arsenal against downtime is your website monitoring service. If the service you use isn’t up to par in regards to their features and practices, you may not be providing your site with the level of protection it needs. If you're looking for website monitoring service or are considering a change from your current service provider, there are some factors you will want to take into consideration before making a decision.

How Often Will Your Site Be Checked?

When it comes to downtime, every second counts. If your site goes down you need to know about it the moment it happens. If your website monitoring service only checks your site a few times per hour, it's not enough. You want a service that checks your site's uptime at least every 60 seconds, if not even more frequently.

Does the Service Safeguard Against False Alerts?

It's three in the morning and you're sound asleep in bed. Suddenly you receive a call or text message that your site has gone down. You jump out of bed, ready to resolve the problem, only to find out that your site isn't really down at all. This is what happens if the website monitor you choose doesn't safeguard against false alerts. Ideally, you want to select a monitoring service that puts measures in place to ensure that any alert you receive is a valid one.

Does the Website Monitoring Service Utilize DNS Caching?

A good number of website monitors rely on DNS caching, which means you won't learn about a website outage until your site's time-to-live expires. That could take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Can your site really afford to encounter days of downtime without you being notified of the problem? When time is of the essence, you want to utilize a website monitor that understands how crucial your uptime is. That is why you don't ever want to choose a provider that uses DNS caching to monitor your site's uptime.

Does the Service Just Monitor the Site or Do They Take Action?

While monitoring your site is a good start when it comes to fighting downtime, on its own it's simply not enough. When your site goes down, you need to take action. Ideally, you'll chose a website monitoring service that can begin taking action for you. Some services only alert you of an outage. Others take it a step further by calling an external API to switch your DNS to a backup site to restore your site's uptime while the issues with your primary site are resolved. While knowing about downtime as soon as it occurs is half the battle, actually being able to do something about the downtime takes monitoring services to an entirely different level.

When it comes to protecting your site's uptime and your business's revenue, you don't want to leave anything up to chance. It's crucial that you make an informed decision when you decide which website monitoring service will best serve your needs. Always keep the above factors in mind before deciding which website monitor is right for you.