Your WordPress site can go down for many reasons: a bad plugin update, expired SSL, hosting hiccups, or a spike in traffic. Often you only find out when a client or visitor tells you.
Uptime monitoring checks your site around the clock and alerts you the moment something breaks — so you can fix it before losing traffic, leads, or trust. This guide covers how to set it up for WordPress and what to monitor beyond the homepage.
Why WordPress Sites Need Uptime Monitoring
WordPress powers a huge share of the web. It's flexible and plugin-driven, which also means more things can go wrong:
- Plugins and themes — A conflict or bug can take the whole site down or break key pages.
- Hosting — Shared hosting can be overloaded; even good hosts have occasional outages.
- SSL — Certificates expire. When they do, visitors see security warnings and often leave.
- Updates — Core, plugin, or theme updates can introduce errors.
- Traffic — A viral post or attack can overwhelm the server.
Monitoring doesn't prevent every issue, but it reduces the time your site is down or broken by alerting you as soon as something fails.
What to Monitor on a WordPress Site
1. Homepage (and key URLs)
Check that the main site loads and returns HTTP 200:
https://yoursite.com/https://yoursite.com/blog/(if you use a blog)- Any critical landing or checkout page
Set checks every 1–5 minutes so short outages are caught.
2. SSL certificate
If your SSL expires, browsers will warn visitors and many will leave. Use monitoring that:
- Checks the certificate validity
- Alerts at 30, 14, 7, and 1 day before expiry
Then renew in time (or use auto-renewal and still monitor so you know if it stops working).
3. Login and admin (optional)
Some teams monitor:
https://yoursite.com/wp-login.php— So they know if login is broken (e.g. by a security plugin or misconfiguration).
Be careful: pinging login too often can look like a brute-force attempt. Use a longer interval (e.g. 15–30 minutes) or a dedicated "health" endpoint if you add one.
4. Response time
A site that loads in 5 seconds is effectively broken for many users. Monitor:
- Response time — Alert if it goes above a threshold (e.g. 3–5 seconds).
- Trends — Gradual slowdowns can point to hosting or plugin issues before they turn into full outages.
5. WooCommerce or other critical flows (if applicable)
For stores:
- Product pages
- Cart
- Checkout
- Payment webhook URL (availability only; don’t trigger real payments from the monitor)
One broken step in checkout can cost sales until you notice.
What Can Go Wrong (And How Monitoring Helps)
| Issue | What happens | How monitoring helps |
|---|---|---|
| Plugin conflict | White screen, 500 errors | Alerts when the site returns 5xx or stops responding |
| SSL expired | Browser security warning | Alerts before expiry so you can renew |
| Hosting outage | Site unreachable | Alerts within minutes so you can contact host or fail over |
| Bad update | Broken layout or functionality | Alerts if key URLs start returning errors |
| DNS problem | Site doesn’t resolve | DNS or HTTP checks from multiple locations can detect it |
| DDoS or traffic spike | Site slow or down | Response time and availability alerts |
Best Practices for WordPress Monitoring
Check from multiple locations
Your host might be fine in one region and failing in another. Use monitoring that checks from several locations so you see geographic issues.
Use HTTPS
Point monitors at https:// so you test the same path visitors use and catch SSL and redirect issues.
Don’t rely only on host status pages
Host status pages often lag reality. Your own uptime checks tell you whether your site is actually reachable.
Pair with a status page
When something does go wrong, a status page (e.g. status.yoursite.com) lets you communicate simply: “We’re aware and working on it.” Some monitoring tools offer this built-in.
Document what you monitor
Keep a short list: which URLs, how often, and who gets alerted. Update it when you add or remove critical pages.
Setting Up Monitoring for Your WordPress Site
- Choose a monitoring service — One that offers HTTP(s) checks, SSL checks, and alerts (email, SMS, Slack, etc.).
- Add your main URL — Usually
https://yourdomain.com. - Add 1–3 critical URLs — e.g. blog, contact, or shop.
- Enable SSL monitoring — So you get advance warning before certificate expiry.
- Set alert contacts — People who can act when the site is down.
- Optional: status page — If you want to show public status to clients or users.
Aim for checks at least every 5 minutes; 1-minute checks are better for business-critical sites.
How Webalert Fits In
Webalert is built for simple, reliable uptime monitoring:
- HTTP/HTTPS checks — Homepage and any important URLs.
- SSL monitoring — Expiry alerts so you never miss a renewal.
- Response time tracking — Spot slowdowns before they become outages.
- Multi-region checks — See if the site is down in specific locations.
- Alerts — Email, SMS, Slack, Discord, webhooks.
- Status pages — Public page to show current status and incidents.
You can start with the free plan and add more monitors or shorter intervals as needed. See features and pricing for details.
Quick WordPress Monitoring Checklist
- Homepage (and main blog/shop URL) monitored with HTTPS
- Check interval 5 minutes or less (1 minute for critical sites)
- SSL certificate expiry alerts enabled
- Response time threshold set (e.g. alert if > 5 seconds)
- Alerts sent to someone who can fix or escalate
- Optional: status page for clients or users
- Optional: WooCommerce or checkout URLs if you run a store
Final Thoughts
WordPress makes it easy to build and change sites, but that flexibility means more potential failure points. Uptime monitoring doesn’t fix your server or plugins — it tells you the moment something breaks so you can fix it fast and keep your site (and your reputation) online.