Let’s suppose you’re building a super cool WordPress website. You choose the right themes, upload good content, understand your SEO well and finally manage to get a substantial amount of traffic to your website. And then bam! Your site keeps crashing again and again. Your customers will be annoyed, your credibility will take a hit and eventually, your users will find another website to visit. Therefore it is a must that you monitor your website on a continual basis to make sure it is up and running at all times. In other words, you need to learn how to monitor your Uptime and Downtime in WordPress.
There are many kinds of tests that can be carried out to do the same, ranging from very simple ones to the ones that check 50+ complex check points at once. Depending upon the nature of your WordPress website requirements.
Test to carry out on your WordPress website
- HTTP Test – This test lets you know whether or not there’s an actual exchange of data between your computer and the internet. It is one of the most basic yet effective tests.
- Ping Monitor Test – Extremely low speed is pretty much as harmful as downtime. So this test not only lets you know whether or not your site is running but also alerts you when you’re facing terrible speed. If your speed is often low, you might need to reconsider your website builder options and hosting plans.
- DNS Server Monitor –This monitor keeps a check whether the DNS address of the server and your website is the same. You can avoid network and protocol failures using this test.
- Transmission Control Protocol Port Monitor – This tests the efficiency of transition of data between one device and another over the internet. There are many services and plugins you may use to constantly monitor your website to maintain your uptime and eliminate downtime. These come in free, paid and freemium modules.
Services to monitor website Uptime and Downtime
Pingdom
Pingdom is a highly popular web monitoring service used by more than 700000 users across the globe. It checks your website every one minute and lets you know if it is down thus minimizing the time taken for you to get the website back up. The alerts are also double checked to eliminate false alarms. They have a free trial and different available packages and also customize packages for users based on requirements.
DownNotifier
As its name suggests, DownNotifier lets you know when your website is down. You simply need to visit their website and enter your URL and choose to be notified whenever your site is down. Besides letting you know when your site is offline, you can also choose to get notified when your site is missing some particular text. Whichever web hosting options you might be using, DownNotifier works equally efficiently. It has both free and premium services depending upon your requirements.
Monitis
Monitis has over 200000 users across the globe and offers both free and premium plans to monitor your website’s functionality. It runs four basic tests and alerts you when they’re faulty –
- Uptime monitoring
- Full page loading monitoring
- Transaction monitoring
- Web stress tests
They offer a 15-day free trial and if you like the service, you may customize your own package based on factors like the frequency of checks you require, the number of locations, etc.
Service Uptime
Service Uptime runs a whole bunch of different checks through their servers to check the functioning of your website. They have both free as well as paid subscription options. With this service, you may choose the frequency of your checks while setting it up. While the free subscription allows you to pick one of their many services, paid versions will allow you to monitor everything from keyword content, IP level connectivity, web server, and link tests, etc.
Site 24*7
Site 24*7 offers all the functions that any other monitoring tool might offer and at the same time offer something additional – it can check the service for internet URLs, intranet, 3G and 4G networks. This means you can track mobile applications and mobile websites on this too. It offers a free trial for 30 days post which you can pick among their multiple packages such as website monitoring, server monitoring, app monitoring or a combination of all three.
These were the most efficient services available today. Now let’s look at a few plugins that can help you out with the same functions.
Plugins for WordPress monitoring Uptime and Downtime of websites
Jetpack for WordPress
Jetpack comes with multiple functionalities and one of its most popular function is monitoring Uptime. The best part is it comes installed with WordPress and all you have to do is activate it. Its way of sending alerts is via email. So it is important to set up a segregation system for Jetpack emails so that you never lose out on important alerts.
Uptime Robot Plugin>
Like its name suggests, Uptime Robot Plugin allows you to closely monitor your uptime. It allows you to check your uptime statistics from its dashboard as well as from any other page or widget. You can do that by placing its shortcuts anywhere you like on the website. In this way, you can see your entire history of uptime and downtime and make concrete decisions based on it. Simply make an account with UptimeRobot.com, install the plugin and activate it to get started!
Real User Monitoring – Pingdom
This Real User Monitoring plugin by Pingdom lets you check your website uptime and downtime for different users in different countries and locations around the globe. You can view all this valuable data simply from your dashboard. You can then use this data to derive some stats and make enhancements to improve your website performance.
It is advisable to check out the trials and see what works best for you before investing in a service or plugin. However, all the ones mentioned above are excellent options and won’t stand to let you down with your WordPress website.
Catherrine Garcia is an experienced Web Developer and a passionate blogger. She loves to share her knowledge through articles on web development and WordPress.
