How to Monitor the Uptime of Your Website (+Tools)

Have you ever been on a website, clicked the link to an article, only to hit an error page instead? It’s frustrating and leaves you feeling disappointed. Businesses want things to run like clockwork. That involves having websites running smoothly every second of the day.

How can you ensure this happens? By staying vigilant with website uptime monitoring. Think of it this way: If web hosting is your business car, then uptime monitoring is its GPS system. It helps you track its performance levels so you know where it stands at all times.

In this blog post, you'll learn what uptime monitoring is, why it’s important, and popular tools that help measure your website uptime.

What is the uptime of a website?

Your uptime refers to the percentage of time that your website is accessible to users. This is calculated by comparing the amount of time the site runs without any technical difficulties to downtime.

If you experience 100% uptime, then your website would be up and running all day and all night without any interruptions. On the other hand, if your website experiences a 10-minute outage during an 8-hour period, then it would have 99.6% uptime.

Why You Want a High Uptime

A high uptime shows you can keep a website continuously up and running. This is especially beneficial for pages that customers visit frequently, like an ecommerce store or an online service platform.

Here are some top benefits of having a high uptime for your website.

1. You’ll improve the user experience.

Having consistent uptime is key for a great user experience. If your website has frequent downtimes, then users will be unable to access the content they want. They may even look elsewhere for products. Ultimately, this could lead to a loss in potential customers.

2. Your uptime helps with SEO.

Search engines monitor your website’s uptime as they index your site and rank its content. If they come across frequent downtimes, search engines could reduce the ranking of your website on SERPs. This will take away from the organic traffic you are trying to gain.

3. You’ll maintain reliability.

Uptime is a measure of reliability. The more reliable your website, the better customer experience you can provide. This strengthens customer trust in your brand and leads to higher conversion rates.

4. Monitoring this metric saves time.

With alert notifications, you can monitor website performance in real time and identify issues that arise. This helps save time, as it makes resolving problems quicker and more efficient.

How to Measure the Uptime of Your Website

Measuring your website’s uptime is important for ensuring a great user experience. See how you can monitor your uptime below.

1. Sign up for a website monitoring service.

These tools check your website 24/7, providing detailed reports on performance levels and uptimes. This data can then be used to make any necessary adjustments to ensure your website is up and running at all times.

2. Configure monitoring settings.

After signing up, you need to configure your settings. Enter the URL of the website you want to monitor and set the frequency of checks. You may also configure the type of checks you want to perform, such as HTTP, HTTPS, and more.

3. Set up alerts.

Your monitoring tool should provide real-time notifications of website downtimes. You can then monitor website performance and take corrective action quickly.

Set up alerts based on your preferences. You can request alerts through email, SMS, push notifications, and more.

4. Start monitoring.

Once you have completed the configuration, start monitoring the website. Most website monitoring services provide a dashboard where you can see uptimes and response times.

5. Analyze reports.

Monitoring a website's uptime is not enough. You should also analyze reports to find out the root cause of the downtime. Review these reports regularly, and take necessary actions to avoid downtime in the future.

Tools to Monitor Your Website’s Uptime

Monitoring your website’s uptime is essential for ensuring a great user experience. With the help of these tools, you can track website performance in real time. Let’s dive in.

1. Uptrends

Uptrends incorporates real browser monitoring technology, making it possible to watch website performance from the end user's perspective. Real browser monitoring can help identify issues related to page rendering times. Core features include:

• Simultaneously website monitoring across multiple browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.
• Root cause analysis that allows you to identify the cause of website downtime.

What we like: Uptrends' public status pages allow you to communicate website status to your users.

Best for: Enterprises that need a comprehensive solution for website performance monitoring.

2. StatusCake

StatusCake provides detailed reports and real-time notifications of website downtimes. It also allows you to monitor uptime from multiple locations, response time data, and take corrective action if necessary. Core features include:

• A global network of over 100 monitoring locations in more than 45 countries.
• SSL certificate monitoring. This feature detects any issues with SSL certificates and alerts you before they become invalid.

What we like: StatusCake's disaster recovery feature helps you verify if your backup systems are working. This feature ensures that your website can recover quickly from any outage or emergency.

Best for: Companies that need reliable website monitoring with real-time notifications.

3. Pingdom

Pingdom provides a detailed analysis of your website’s uptime and response times. The platform can also send alerts when websites are down and monitor uptime from multiple locations. Core features include:

• Multiple check types, like HTTP, DNS, TCP, UDP, SMTP, and IMAP. This allows you to get a more in-depth view of your website's uptime.
• Real user monitoring, so you can monitor website performance from the perspective of your users.
• Advanced reporting that enable you to analyze website uptime and performance trends.

What we like: Pingdom also monitors the page speed of websites, allowing you to optimize website performance.

Best for: Organizations that need a website monitoring tool with detailed reports.

4. UptimeRobot

UptimeRobot is a popular, user-friendly monitoring service. Small to medium-sized businesses often use the platform's free option. In fact, UptimeRobot allows free users to create up to 50 uptime monitors. Core features include:

• Customizable alerts set to user preferences. You can choose notification frequency, alert contacts, and downtime window schedules.
• SSL monitoring that helps you identify potential certificate issues.
• API access, which enables you to integrate with other applications.

What we like: UptimeRobot integrates with enterprise-level solutions, such as PagerDuty, VictorOps, OpsGenie, to ensure you get alerts promptly.

Best for: Businesses on a budget.

5. Site24x7

Site24x7's monitoring capabilities provide businesses with valuable insights into their website performance. Users can track and analyze metrics, like response time, page load times, and more. Core features include:

• Ease of use. Site24x7 is straightforward to set up and use, with a user-friendly dashboard that provides granular visibility into website uptime.
• Integrations with other business-critical tools, such as Slack, PagerDuty, and Freshservice, enabling businesses to automate workflows.

What we like: Site24x7 offers multilocation website monitoring that tests website uptime and performance from over 90 locations worldwide.

Best for: Companies in need of a comprehensive monitoring solution.

6. Updown.io

Updown.io is a lightning-fast, simple, and effective website monitoring service. Here, you can set custom check intervals and advanced altering channels. Issues with your site’s performance can be sent to your phone, email, and Slack. Core features include:

• Fast checks that typically take only a few seconds.

• Customizable intervals that allow you to control how often your website is checked.

What we like: Updown.io provides shared status pages, allowing businesses to put their page availability out to the public.

Best for: Those in search of a speedy, budget-friendly option.

7. HetrixTools

HetrixTools is an all-in-one server and website monitoring tool. You can check if your site is live and delve into the bad actors that can affect your performance. Additionally, HetrixTools can help analyze website DNS settings, scan websites for malware, and check if IP addresses are disallowed.

Core features include:

• Reputation monitoring, which provides insight into your website IP address's reputation
• DNS health checks that ensure that servers are always available and delivering fast response times.
• Malware scanning that make sure that websites are secure and free from threats.

What we like: HetrixTools provides businesses with a user-friendly interface that displays data in real time.

Best for: Businesses looking to monitor both uptimes and security threats.

8. Better Stack

Better Stack is a website monitoring service that aims to make it easier for businesses to monitor their websites, servers, and APIs. Core features include:

• An intuitive dashboard where businesses can proactively identify, troubleshoot, and manage incidents in real time.
• Automatic incident detection, alerting businesses of potential issues before end-users are impacted.
• Collaborative tools, enabling integration with chat tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and more.

What we like: Better Stack presents detailed reports and analytics that help businesses analyze performance data and identify trends.

Best for: Online companies, E-commerce, SAAS, and service-based businesses that rely heavily on their websites' availability for revenue and growth

9. Apica

Apica provides comprehensive load testing and performance monitoring solutions. The platform is designed to help businesses optimize website and mobile performance by identifying bottlenecks. Core features include:

• Multi-check that enables users to monitor multiple website checkpoints to ensure an accurate view of website performance.
• Diagnostic Data, including error messages and response times.

What we like: Better Uptime integrates with a range of third-party tools and services, including Slack, PagerDuty, and Zapier, to make website monitoring seamless and efficient.

Best for: Businesses of any size that rely on web applications, mobile applications, and API services.

Getting Started with Uptime Monitoring

Monitoring your website's uptimeis essential for the success and longevity of your website. So, consider getting an uptime monitoring that best fits your needs.