Ok, moving on…
It’s the worst when someone tells you that your website isn’t loading, isn’t it?
It is possible to know when it happens first [immediately], and I’m going to tell you how in this e-mail.
Websites go down, become unresponsive or crash. It’s a fact. And it’s becoming more common due in part to an increase in hacking, complex plugins and cheap web hosts.
The consequences stink — lost visitors, sales, people on social media telling you that you’re site is broke. Sometimes it’s them, more often it’s not.
The “why” might vary, but knowing when it happens and verifying it’s not just you is the crucial first step to resolving the problem and getting it back online.
Luckily, with the right bits of useful knowledge, it is very easy to know when your site goes down.
Website Monitors
There are services, commonly called website monitors or “uptime monitors,” that will “ping” or check your website at regular intervals and send you a message if it’s not loading.
Depending on the service, they can check your website every few minutes (or faster) and will send you any sort of message you’d like, [text, e-mail, tweet, etc.] to let you know your site is down.
Many are free, the ones with extra bells and whistles usually cost.
The great thing about these services is that they don’t take much more than signing up and typing in your website address – no installations! Easy, easy, easy!
It’s a no-brainer if you’ve been battling downtime problems and questions!
Below are a few recommended services and a comment on IT Arsenal’s experience with them.
- https://copperegg.com – high quality, well designed
- https://www.statuscake.com – 5 minute free interval plan, good support
- https://www.site24x7.com – 10 minute interval, 5 sites, for free
- https://uptimerobot.com – simple interface, 5 min interval, 50 sites, always free
- https://servercheck.in – $15/year but includes SMS alerts, and latency reports
TIP: Don’t get thrown off by the additional services and verbiage. You want something that will “ping” or “HTTP” test your site.
Get your site monitored by one or more of these services when you’re planning a really popular post, or to keep tabs on your site if it’s been going up and down and you’re not sure why.
Often times, when you can cite historical data to your web host, they will look deeper at why your site may be going down. Or perhaps the timing may reveal the problem.
It’s my sincere hope this was useful to you and your business, as always!
Again, if you or a friend is interested in combining their e-mail accounts in one Gmail account, check out the Gmail Unifier, half price, by clicking here.
