"You need uptime monitoring" — but what does that actually mean?
If you run a website, an online store, or an API, uptime monitoring is one of the first things you should set up. This guide explains what it is, how it works, and why it matters, in plain language.
What Is Uptime Monitoring?
Uptime monitoring (or website monitoring) means checking your site or API on a schedule to see if it's reachable and responding. If a check fails — the site is down, too slow, or returns an error — you get an alert so you can fix it before users complain.
In short: something watches your site 24/7 and notifies you the moment something goes wrong.
How Does Uptime Monitoring Work?
1. A monitor checks your URL
A monitoring service (or your own script) sends a request to your URL every few minutes — for example every 1, 5, or 10 minutes. It runs from one or more locations on the internet, so it's checking from "outside" your network, like a real visitor would.
2. It checks for success
The monitor looks at:
- Did the request get a response? (e.g. HTTP 200 OK)
- How long did it take? (response time)
- Did the response indicate an error? (e.g. 500, timeout)
If the response is OK and fast enough, the check passes. If not, the check fails.
3. When checks fail, you get an alert
After one or more failed checks (depending on the tool), the service sends an alert — by email, SMS, Slack, or another channel you chose. That alert says something like: "Monitor X (your URL) is down."
4. When the site recovers, you can get a recovery alert
Many tools also send a "back up" or recovery notification when the site starts responding again. So you know the incident is over and for how long it lasted.
Summary: Check → Pass or Fail → If fail, alert → You fix it → Site recovers → (Optional) recovery alert.
Why Do You Need Uptime Monitoring?
You can't fix what you don't know about
Without monitoring, you often find out about downtime when a user emails or posts. By then you've lost time, and possibly revenue or trust. Monitoring tells you the moment something breaks so you can respond first.
Downtime has real costs
- Lost sales — If checkout is down, no one can buy.
- Lost signups — If the site doesn't load, visitors leave.
- Lost trust — "Why didn't they know their site was down?"
- Wasted time — You discover issues late and debug without a clear start time.
Monitoring doesn't prevent every outage, but it shortens the time you're down by ensuring you're alerted quickly.
It's simple and cheap (often free)
You don't need servers or complex setup. You add your URL to a monitoring service, choose how you want to be alerted (e.g. email or Slack), and you're done. Many tools offer a free plan so you can start at no cost.
What Can Be Monitored?
Websites (HTTP/HTTPS)
The most common case: your homepage, landing pages, or any public URL. The monitor requests the URL and checks that it returns a success code (e.g. 200) and optionally that response time is under a threshold.
APIs
Same idea: the monitor hits your API endpoint (e.g. https://api.yoursite.com/health) and checks the response. Critical for apps that depend on that API.
SSL certificates
Monitoring can also check that your HTTPS certificate is valid and not expiring soon. You get alerts (e.g. 30, 14, 7, 1 day before expiry) so you can renew in time and avoid "site down" due to an expired cert.
Other checks
Some tools offer DNS checks, ping, or custom scripts. The core idea is the same: run a check on a schedule and alert when something is wrong.
Key Concepts in Plain English
Uptime percentage
Uptime is often expressed as a percentage: e.g. 99.9% means the site was reachable 99.9% of the time over the period (e.g. a month). So 99.9% allows for about 43 minutes of downtime per month. Higher is better; 100% is rare in practice.
Check interval
How often the monitor runs: e.g. every 1, 5, or 10 minutes. Faster checks = faster alerts but may cost more or have limits on free plans. For most sites, 5-minute checks are a good balance.
Alert channel
Where alerts are sent: email, SMS, Slack, Discord, webhook, etc. Choose a channel you actually check so you don't miss alerts.
Status page
A status page is a public page (e.g. status.yoursite.com) that shows whether your services are up or down and sometimes past incidents. Not all monitoring tools include one; it's useful if you want to show customers that you're on top of reliability.
What to Look For in an Uptime Monitoring Tool
When you're choosing a tool, consider:
- Check frequency — At least every 5 minutes for most sites; 1 minute for critical ones.
- Alert channels — Email plus at least one channel you check often (e.g. Slack or SMS).
- Number of monitors — How many URLs or endpoints you can add (free and paid).
- SSL monitoring — Alerts before your certificate expires.
- Response time — So you're alerted when the site is slow, not only when it's down.
- Status page — If you want to show uptime to users or clients.
- Free tier — So you can try without a credit card.
You don't need every feature on day one. Start with: one or a few URLs, email (or Slack), and optional SSL checks. Add more monitors and channels as you grow.
How to Get Started
- Pick a monitoring service — One that offers HTTP/HTTPS checks and alerts (email, Slack, or SMS). Many have a free plan.
- Add your URL — Usually your homepage or most important page. That's your first "monitor."
- Choose how to be alerted — Email, Slack, or SMS. Send a test notification to confirm it works.
- Optional — Add SSL monitoring for that URL so you get expiry alerts. Add more URLs if you have more critical pages or APIs.
Within a few minutes you'll have something watching your site 24/7 and alerting you when it goes down.
What Webalert Offers
Webalert is built to make uptime monitoring simple:
- Add a URL — Your site or API. We check it on a schedule (e.g. every 1 or 5 minutes).
- Get alerted — Email, SMS, Slack, Discord, or webhooks when something fails (and when it recovers).
- SSL monitoring — Certificate expiry alerts so you don't miss a renewal.
- Response time — See how fast your site responds and get alerted when it's slow.
- Status page — Optional public page to show users your uptime and incidents.
- Free plan — Start with no credit card; upgrade when you need more monitors or faster checks.
See features and pricing for details.
Quick Summary
- Uptime monitoring = something checks your site on a schedule and alerts you when it's down or broken.
- How it works = Request your URL → Check response → If fail, send alert → You fix it → Optional recovery alert.
- Why you need it = So you know immediately when something breaks, instead of finding out from users.
- What to look for = Check frequency, alert channels, monitor count, SSL checks, optional status page.
- Getting started = Add your URL to a monitoring tool, set up alerts, and optionally enable SSL monitoring.
Once it's set up, you'll have peace of mind that you're the first to know when your site goes down — and you can fix it fast.