alt="The Ultimate Guide in Tracking Website Uptime" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/site-down-500x227_c.jpg" />
As you search for a web host, you’ll undoubtedly come across the term “uptime” and all sorts of guarantees surrounding it. But what does it actually mean – and why does it matter?
What is hosting uptime?
Uptime refers to the amount of time that your website is up and running, available to visitors and potential clients; anything that isn’t uptime is downtime – and to oversimplify it, downtime is bad.
Downtime means that people can’t reach your site which can be frustrating to potential visitors while also costing you traffic and revenue. Additionally, if people aren’t able to reach your site the first time, they may not try again. That said, href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/hosting-review/ehost/">hosting providers provide minimum uptime guarantees which is a guarantee that they’ll have your site up and running that percent of the total hours in a day. As a general rule, don’t work with providers who give anything less than a 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Why tracking your web host uptime is important
On your end, you’re responsible for monitoring your service and site uptime to ensure you have a clear view of your provider’s performance, but more importantly, so that you’re the first to know when your site goes down; this fast response time is critical. And, yes, your web host of course monitors uptime – but no matter how much you trust your host, you need to monitor your uptime proactively. This helps you to confirm that your web host is making good on their promises and also gives you some level of control over your own site’s performance; think of it as “the more eyes and ears you have, the better.”
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So how do you track your website uptime?
So what are the practical methods to track your website uptime? No – you don’t have to check your website every 5 minutes or so in your browser. The quick answer is using web tools to auto-check your site uptime and listed below are some of my favorite tools.
But before we dig into the tools, let’s take a closer look on types of tools available in the market.
Types of Server Monitoring Tools
There are literally dozens, if not more, of server monitoring tools available online – some are free and some costs upwards of thousands of dollars annually. Some run simple HTTP checks to confirm whether your site is running, while others perform very complex back-end jobs to monitor more than 50 checkpoints simultaneously.
The various tools run every end of the spectrum, which can be a bit overwhelming to shoppers, but also ensures that there is a tool out there to fit your needs and budget. For example, free and easy tools include Uptime Robot, Monitor Us, Pingdom, and WHSR’s Uptime monitor, among others. More powerful (and costly) tools include Naios, Cacti, and others.
Regardless of which uptime monitoring tool you go with, it will fit into one of the four types of monitoring: Ping monitor, HTTP monitor, DNS Server Monitor, and TCP port monitor.
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Ping Monitorstyle="padding-left: 30px;">A Ping monitor basically pings your website to confirm that it’s there and up and running.
style="padding-left: 30px;">Think of it like a virtual ping pong ball; if you serve the ball to a wall, it should hit that wall and come back to you – if the wall is down, the ball isn’t able to connect. Same with a ping monitor – if your site is down, it senses the missing connection and notifies you.
style="padding-left: 30px;">This type of monitoring typically goes a bit above simply letting you know if your site is up, however – it does also provide insight into internet connection speeds and downtime statistics. The connection speed is an important factor, because slow websites are not much better than down sites for visitors, not to mention that slow speeds hurt your Google search rankings.
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HTTP Monitorstyle="padding-left: 30px;">We use HTTP to transfer data online, using set rules that tell the servers and web browsers which information to exchange. Because it is involved in the constant information exchange that occurs, HTTP monitors provide information about the HTTP traffic between the internet and computer. Advanced settings allow users to glean additional insights, such as whether an SSL certificate is in place.
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DNS Server Monitorstyle="padding-left: 30px;">Every computer corresponds with a numerical address; the DNS protocol translates the online address to the numerical address. By matching the information and running behind the scenes monitoring of the addresses, the DNS server monitor is able to provide in-depth information about uptime, protocol failures, network outages, and more. Particularly important, should a numerical address mismatch with the online address, the DNS is able to sense it and report the error which may be a result of hijacking.
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TCP Port Monitorstyle="padding-left: 30px;">The Transmission Control Protocol – or TCP, for short, transfers data from one network device to another network device, using a retransmission strategy to ensure that there isn’t any data loss that occurs during each transmission. Since it is part of quality monitoring and has a hand in establishing host-to-host communications, it becomes apparent quite quickly if there is a connection problem. Should a TCP port fail to respond or receive transmitted information, the monitor will alert the user of the failed or faulty transmission.
style="padding-left: 30px;">It is incredibly important to monitor your site’s uptime to make it successful. There are constant threats in the cyber world and working with a great host who carefully monitors uptime and employs great defenses proactively is the first step; taking secondary measures to monitor yourself is the second and both are equally important.
Must know server monitoring tools
1. Monitor Scout (Free)
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class="border wp-image-9995 size-full" src="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/uptime-monitor-scout.jpg" alt="Monitor Scout Homepage" width="750" height="500" srcset="http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/uptime-monitor-scout.jpg 750w, http://whsr.webrevenueinc1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/uptime-monitor-scout-300x200.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />
class="wp-caption-text">Monitor Scout Homepage
Monitor Scout helps monitor websites availability from 15 different locations and runs checks on HTTP, HTTPS, PING, mySQL, MS SQL, IMAP, POP3, DNS, etc upt to every one minute interval. Users get email and SMS alerts in case of server outage; detailed reports including uptime, latency, and in-depth analysis are provided. I had a Q&A session with Monitor Scout CEO in 2012 and href="http://www.webhostingsecretrevealed.net/blog/interviews/interview-with-johan-ceo-of-monitor-scout/">here is the interview.
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