StatusCake

Frequently asked questions on website monitoring

We know you've got questions on all things downtime. We've got the answers. Find out everything you need to know to maximise your website's performance.

updates and alerts

You asked us about website monitoring, and we answered.

Unfortunately, what is the best cake recipe to use when baking does not feature on the list below (though not through choice).

Good question. Use StatusCake’s website monitoring solution! The best part? All we’d need to monitor your website is the URL if it’s a website, or the IP address if it’s a server you would like to monitor via PING.

All of our website monitoring is done remotely and load wise it’s no heavier than a single visit from a normal user to your website. So there’s no risk in running the performance testing.

Website downtime is when your website goes down and people can’t access it. Downtime isn’t binary which means your website could be up in the UK but down in Canada and you wouldn’t know about it.

It’s also not always as simple as 404 not found, there might be situations where a far flung component lets you down, and as a result customers can’t process orders on your ecommerce website, or visitors can’t read the latest article on your blog.

StatusCake’s uptime monitoring solution alerts you to website downtime in 43 locations in 30 different countries so you’re always the first to know. 

The most common error codes for website downtime are:

404 – page not found

401 – Unauthorized

500 – Internal server error

502 – Bad Gateway

410 – Gone

A website uptime test is carried out to see if your website is available for browsing in a set of locations, or globally.

For example, if you have a big customer base in India but are based in the UK, you can set an uptime test to check both locations so you know when and where your website has gone down. Each uptime test will periodically check one URL or IP address.

One test is one URL, IP or website address which can be added for periodic error checking. Each test can have a custom check rate depending on your StatusCake plan level, ranging from once per 30 seconds to once per week.

A website uptime test works by servers in a set location simulating a visit to the users website to see if it’s online. If a problem is detected the test will confirm the error from separate servers in the same, or a different location depending on test settings.

We advise using the fastest check rate you can to produce the most detailed coverage, and also to return the most accurate downtime length in the event of a detection.

When your website is down we can alert you right away via your chosen alert method (email, SMS, mobile push & web hook), we will also record the downtime along with all of the information within a dedicated detailed page in app.

Server monitoring receives data from an agent which is installed on the server that you would like to test. Data is periodically returned on the systems processor (CPU), random access memory (RAM) , and Hard Disk usage. Thresholds can be set on what is acceptable usage for what period of time, and alerts can be sent if the tests exceed the set thresholds.

Having server monitoring in place as well as uptime monitoring allows you to see when your websites and services might start having problems, often before they do. We can use server monitoring to detect a variety of issues related to resource usage.

We can monitor the server’s health with our server monitoring feature. This is useful for getting early indications of downtime, and we can let you know if resource usage is persistently above set thresholds on RAM, DISK and CPU.

Confirmation servers are used at StatusCake to ensure that all alerts are valid, when we detect a downtime initially we can optionally confirm that downtime with up to 10 additional and separate servers – this means no false alarms.

We test page speed by using dedicated server locations across the world. We analyse and report on response times of how quickly your website loads – simulating a visit from a real user. We generate a detailed report showing a breakdown for the load time and performance of each resource on the page, and then we send this report to our customers.

We measure page load speed on your website by visiting the webpage with a real browser and calculating the total load time, looking at each individual resource provided by the server.

Page speed is important for many aspects of your business. From SEO and rankings in Google (if your page speed is slow, you will be ranked lower), to customer retention and satisfaction, bounce rates and conversions to overall revenue, page speed can be detrimental to all of these making it a hugely important element on your website to monitor. 

SSL monitoring works by StatusCake visiting your website and checking the expiration date as well as the validity of the SSL certificate that’s in use.

Having an SSL certificate on your website communicates to the user that their data is safe and encrypted when browsing your website.

A domain can be stolen and this is generally referred to as hijacking. With our domain monitoring it’s easy to see whether the transfer lock on a domain has been removed, and we can let you know if any of your DNS records undergo unexpected changes right away.

We can do this with our Content Match feature, this checks the page source for your chosen string/strings and can report to you based on whether they are found/not found.

Website Monitoring plans

Our paid plans start with a 7 day free trial. No credit card required.

Learn more about our plans

Free

For individuals and small businesses. The basics of StatusCake monitoring.

$0

/ month

What do you get with free?
10 Uptime Monitors
5 Mins Test Intervals
1 Page Speed Monitor
1 Domain Monitor
1 SSL Monitor
Alerts through Integrations

Superior

Access more monitoring tools and more customisation. Perfect for small businesses.

From
$20.41

/ month

What do you get?
100 Uptime Monitors
1 Min Test Intervals
15 Page Speed Monitors
50 Domain Monitors
50 SSL Monitors
3 Server Monitors
Alerts through Integrations
Reporting

Enterprise

Build a plan to suit your business. Scale with bolt ons.

Custom

/ month

Build your own plan
Limitless Monitors
Constant Check Rate
Dedicated Uptime & Page Speed Locations
Service Creditable SLAs
Regular Account Reviews

Location, location, location

With paid accounts, you can choose where your uptime tests are run from. So if your website is down in the UK but not in America, you'll know about it.

See StatusCake test locations
pin pointing the right location

Try StatusCake for free today

Want to know how much website downtime costs, and the impact it can have on your business?

Find out everything you need to know in our new uptime monitoring whitepaper 2021

*By providing your email address, you agree to our privacy policy and to receive marketing communications from StatusCake.