{"id":27428,"date":"2012-07-04T22:49:34","date_gmt":"2012-07-04T17:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/?p=27428"},"modified":"2026-10-13T13:41:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T08:11:06","slug":"monitoring-site-uptime-downtime-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2012\/07\/monitoring-site-uptime-downtime-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Website Uptime Monitoring: Free Tools and What Our 3-Year Report Showed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In July 2012 we looked back at three years of uptime data after moving QuickOnlineTips to KnownHost. A free Pingdom account had recorded 65 downtimes totalling 1 day, 3 hours and 45 minutes, most of it from one spike in 2011, for an overall uptime of 99.89%. <strong>Website uptime monitoring<\/strong> is still the simplest way to know your site is down before your readers tell you. Here&#8217;s how to set it up free in 2026.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-27429\" src=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/site-uptime.png\" alt=\"Website uptime monitoring report\" width=\"500\" height=\"343\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/site-uptime.png 500w, https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/site-uptime-300x205.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Quick answer:<\/strong> Sign up for a free monitor such as UptimeRobot or Better Stack, add your homepage URL as an HTTP(S) check, and turn on email or app alerts. The service checks your site every few minutes from several locations and alerts you when it&#8217;s down. Add a keyword check to catch error pages that still return &#8220;200 OK&#8221;.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_89 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6af00abf4b41d\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"ez-toc-cssicon\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #1a202c;color:#1a202c\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #1a202c;color:#1a202c\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6af00abf4b41d\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2012\/07\/monitoring-site-uptime-downtime-report\/#Free_website_uptime_monitoring_tools\" >Free website uptime monitoring tools<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2012\/07\/monitoring-site-uptime-downtime-report\/#How_to_set_up_monitoring\" >How to set up monitoring<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2012\/07\/monitoring-site-uptime-downtime-report\/#What_uptime_percentages_mean\" >What uptime percentages mean<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2012\/07\/monitoring-site-uptime-downtime-report\/#When_downtime_happens\" >When downtime happens<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2012\/07\/monitoring-site-uptime-downtime-report\/#FAQ\" >FAQ<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2012\/07\/monitoring-site-uptime-downtime-report\/#How_often_should_uptime_be_checked\" >How often should uptime be checked?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2012\/07\/monitoring-site-uptime-downtime-report\/#Does_downtime_hurt_SEO\" >Does downtime hurt SEO?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-8\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2012\/07\/monitoring-site-uptime-downtime-report\/#Whats_a_good_uptime_for_a_blog\" >What&#8217;s a good uptime for a blog?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Free_website_uptime_monitoring_tools\"><\/span>Free website uptime monitoring tools<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/uptimerobot.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UptimeRobot<\/a>: generous free plan with 5-minute checks, email and app alerts, and public status pages.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/betterstack.com\/uptime\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Better Stack<\/a>: free tier with uptime checks, incident alerts and status pages.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Jetpack Monitor:<\/strong> free downtime alerts for WordPress sites connected to Jetpack.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Your host or CDN:<\/strong> many include basic uptime alerts or health checks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Pingdom, which we used in 2012, is now a paid service.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_to_set_up_monitoring\"><\/span>How to set up monitoring<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li>Create a free account and add a new HTTP(S) monitor for your homepage.<\/li>\n<li>Add a second monitor for an important page or your wp-login.php.<\/li>\n<li>Use a keyword monitor that looks for a word on the page, to catch database errors.<\/li>\n<li>Set alert contacts: email, mobile push, or Slack\/Telegram.<\/li>\n<li>Optionally publish a status page for readers or clients.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_uptime_percentages_mean\"><\/span>What uptime percentages mean<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>99.9%:<\/strong> about 8.8 hours of downtime a year.<\/li>\n<li><strong>99.95%:<\/strong> about 4.4 hours a year.<\/li>\n<li><strong>99.99%:<\/strong> about 53 minutes a year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Our 99.89% in 2012 equalled roughly 9.5 hours a year, mostly from one bad incident.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"When_downtime_happens\"><\/span>When downtime happens<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Check whether it&#8217;s just you (another network or a down-checker site).<\/li>\n<li>Look at your host&#8217;s status page and error logs.<\/li>\n<li>Learn from past outages: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2006\/12\/site-down-36-hours-how-i-fixed-internal-server-errors\/\">how I fixed 36 hours of internal server errors<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Consider faster, more reliable hosting such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2013\/12\/knownhost-ssd-vps-hosting\/\">SSD VPS hosting<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"FAQ\"><\/span>FAQ<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_often_should_uptime_be_checked\"><\/span>How often should uptime be checked?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Every 1-5 minutes is typical; free plans often check every 5 minutes.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Does_downtime_hurt_SEO\"><\/span>Does downtime hurt SEO?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Short outages don&#8217;t, but repeated or long downtime can reduce crawling and rankings.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Whats_a_good_uptime_for_a_blog\"><\/span>What&#8217;s a good uptime for a blog?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Aim for 99.9% or better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In July 2012 we looked back at three years of uptime data after moving QuickOnlineTips to KnownHost. A free Pingdom&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":27429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,25,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogging","category-hosting","category-about"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27428"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65451,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27428\/revisions\/65451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}