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  1. #1
    TravG's Avatar
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    Default How Do You Monitor Your Websites?

    So I was getting ready to do some work on my one website and when I went to the site it was down. I forget what error I exactly got but had I not decided to work on that particular site tonight I would have never known it was down. I called Go Daddy and they got everything worked out so it is back up, but how do you know if your website is not working?

    Personally I have over 15 websites and a week or two may go by without me ever looking at one of them. I know others on here have multiple websites as well so how do you monitor them to make sure they are up? Other than actually going to the website is there anything that can monitor them and send an alert or email or something if it goes down? Had I not looked it may have stayed down for a few days.

    I know GWT will say if a site is down but that may take a day or two before it tells you, and currently my GWT account hasn't updated since 2/7 (no idea why). So is anyone using anything that monitors their websites and lets you know if there is a problem?

    Thanks!
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  2. #2
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    I use Pingdom free but I find its late in notifying and sometimes sends out false alerts "I use cloudflare" I really need to change it, but it does the job i need


  3. #3
    baldidiot is offline Private Member
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    Default

    https://uptimerobot.com/ is all you need my friend!

    Free for up to 50 sites, checks every 5 minutes like clockwork and gives stats (in case you're complaining to your host about SLAs). There's a premium version as well but I just use the free one...
    onlinegamblingwebsites.com - Formally known as goodbonusguide.

    Gambling Domains: Small clear out of some of the domains we've been hoarding on Dan - see the list here. Prices negotiable, and willing to swap for decent links.

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    BettingTools (13 February 2015), sweetbet (13 February 2015)

  5. #4
    universal4's Avatar
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    I run PRTG Server.

    They actually have a free version that comes with 10 sensors, and you can actually run this on a Windows 7 or above workstation. (a minimum of 4 will be used by itself if set up correctly)

    There should honestly be no reason to monitor all websites on the same server, or possibly one static and one wordpress/database driven site.

    I highly recommend this for small hosts. (in fact they have phone apps that work rather well and I am notified within 60 seconds of any server going down)(I just wish they would fix the windows phone version of the app for push notifications)

    For sites I have some clients that use Internetseer and are fairly happy with it.

    I have heard some good things about pingdom in the past, but have never tried it.

    WHATEVER you use, make sure it actually pulls a page on the website, connects to a database, or requests an actual dns answer and not just pings the ip. A website or web service could actually be down and yet the ip still answer a ping, and if IGMP is turned off or blocked pings would not answer anyway.

    Good discussion as I know there are many monitoring services available.

    Rick
    Universal4

  6. #5
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    I use Verelo Blog Monitoring Plugin for one of my blogs.

  7. #6
    universal4's Avatar
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    Interesting sweetbet,

    But if the blog is down, how does the plugin monitor itself?

    Or does it call out to a live service that then notifies you it did not get a call from the site?

    Rick
    Universal4

  8. #7
    -Shay- is offline Public Member
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    Quote Originally Posted by UltimatePokerBonus View Post
    currently my GWT account hasn't updated since 2/7 (no idea why).
    You're not alone...

  9. #8
    universal4's Avatar
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    Personally I have found Google monitoring to be extremely IN-accurate.

    This is likely due to using their own dns servers which are VERY in-accurate.

    Rick
    Universal4

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  11. #9
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    It looks like the service was recently discontinued

    When it was in operation, the Verelo website would monitor if my site was online or offline by connecting to the Verelo plugin on my site. If my site was offline, I'd get a phone SMS or an email, depending on what I chose. I'd get another message when the site came back online.

  12. #10
    universal4's Avatar
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    PRTG server basically runs that way only you have the control over the triggers. You do however need a third party to send a text, but the live app works great without the need for sending an sms since the app knows within 60 seconds of an alert in the logs. (on android and IOS, the push doesn't work quite right just yet on windows phone)

    In addition, you can easily set it up to send an email once a trigger is in force for a certain time frame.

    As an example, I set trigger to make an entry in the logs at any down time, and I have it set to send me an email if the status continues for 2 minutes.

    Since it polls every 60 seconds I know on the app as soon as a server is unreachable for a MAXIMUM time of 61 seconds and get an email if that continues for 120 seconds more. (maximum total of 3 minutes)

    This allows for server reboots without the additional entries in logs or emails.

    Many of the services I have looked at have polling time frames in the 5 and 10 minute ranges which is actually quite reasonable for website monitoring.

    As an example, internetseer has a free version that checks every 60 minutes and much shorter time frames for enterprise pricing.

    Pingdom looks to be a decent service, but it's hard to determine without a bit of digging what the $14 plan actually covers, it says 20 checks but did not define if that is per day, per hour or constant monitoring from 20 locations. It also appears that pricing increases if you get many sms alerts.

    The uptimerobit that baldidiot posted looks to be a really nice service for a free monitor. Their standard default is a check every five minutes.

    Looking at their system I would recommend the http checks or maybe use the keyword check and create a page with a specific keyword on it and monitor that page.

    Rick
    Universal4

    Side note: The more responses here the more options others will have to choose from, so keep the recommendations coming.

  13. #11
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    I would check each website once per day. It definitely takes some time but you have to think that this is your business. 10 minutes should be enough and I think itīs worth to do so. Just a quick check if the site is working correctly and check the most important pages for any errors. I think this is the only way to ensure that all sites are up running.
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  14. #12
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    securi, they monitor 10-15 for about 300 a year and monitor larger amounts as well. They also have a CDN firewall

  15. #13
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    Default

    Another Pingdom user here, it works quite nicely and touch wood haven't had any outages lately as everything is pretty stable. I've also used Pagerduty in the past (although a great service it brings back bad memories of a previous job where I would often be woken up in the early hours)!

  16. #14
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    Default

    I also second Pingdom

  17. #15
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    PRTG now monitors dozens more thing and devices than previously.

    The freeware version they offer now actually does the same thing their Enterprise version does, although it is limited to 30 sensors total for freeware.

    The only thing I advise is to stop/turn off the auto discovery as it will go nuts and find and add sensors for every single device on your network, and if your switch is manageable, it will add a sensor for every single port, and if your multi-homed once it is done with the public side it will get to work on the private side....

    Rick
    Universal4

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