Effective website monitoring is more than just checking if your site is up or down. It requires a thoughtful strategy that balances comprehensive coverage with actionable insights. In this guide, we will cover the essential best practices to help you build a robust monitoring setup.

Why Monitoring Matters

Before diving into the how, let us talk about the why. Website monitoring serves several critical purposes:

  • Minimize downtime - Detect issues before users report them
  • Maintain reputation - Protect your brand from extended outages
  • Meet SLAs - Track uptime to ensure you meet service level agreements
  • Identify trends - Spot performance degradation before it becomes critical
  • Enable rapid response - Get the right people notified immediately

Studies show that the average cost of downtime can range from $5,600 to $300,000+ per hour depending on your industry. Even for smaller businesses, the impact on customer trust and SEO rankings can be significant.

What to Monitor

Primary Endpoints

Start with your most critical user-facing URLs:

  • Homepage - Often the first impression for visitors
  • Login page - Critical for user access
  • Checkout/payment flow - Directly impacts revenue
  • API endpoints - Essential for integrations and mobile apps
  • CDN content - Ensure static assets are accessible

Infrastructure Components

Do not forget the services that power your application:

  • Database servers - Monitor connection ports (MySQL 3306, PostgreSQL 5432)
  • Cache servers - Redis, Memcached availability
  • Mail servers - SMTP connectivity
  • Load balancers - Health check endpoints

SSL Certificates

SSL monitoring is often overlooked but crucial:

  • Monitor certificate expiration dates
  • Set alerts for 30, 14, and 7 days before expiry
  • Check for proper certificate chain configuration

Setting Appropriate Check Intervals

Choosing the right check interval is a balance between quick detection and resource usage:

CriticalityRecommended Interval
Mission-critical (payment, auth)1 minute
High priority (main site)2-3 minutes
Standard (marketing pages)5 minutes
Low priority (internal tools)10-15 minutes

Best Practices for Intervals

  1. Match business impact - More critical services deserve more frequent checks
  2. Consider check duration - Account for timeout settings in your interval
  3. Avoid overmonitoring - Too many checks can stress your servers and create noise
  4. Use different intervals - Not everything needs the same frequency

Alert Configuration Strategies

The goal of alerting is to notify the right people at the right time without creating alert fatigue.

Avoid Alert Fatigue

Alert fatigue occurs when teams receive so many notifications that they start ignoring them. Combat this by:

  • Set appropriate thresholds - Not every slow response needs an alert
  • Implement escalation - Start with on-call, escalate if unacknowledged
  • Group related alerts - Batch notifications for related issues
  • Require confirmation - Wait for multiple failed checks before alerting

Notification Routing

Route alerts based on severity and ownership:

Critical (site down) → Slack + SMS + Email
Warning (slow response) → Slack + Email
Info (certificate expiring) → Email only

Include Context

Every alert should include:

  • What failed and where
  • When it failed
  • Current status vs expected status
  • Link to more details or runbook

Status Page Best Practices

A public status page builds trust with your users and reduces support burden during incidents.

What to Include

  1. Current system status - At-a-glance health indicator
  2. Individual components - Break down by service area
  3. Uptime history - Show your track record (90 days is standard)
  4. Active incidents - Real-time updates during issues
  5. Scheduled maintenance - Advance notice of planned work

Communication During Incidents

Follow this timeline for incident communication:

  1. Acknowledge (immediately) - “We are aware of an issue and investigating”
  2. Update (every 15-30 min) - “We have identified the cause and are working on a fix”
  3. Resolve - “The issue has been resolved. Services are operating normally”
  4. Post-mortem (within 24-48 hours) - Share what happened and how you will prevent it

Design Considerations

  • Keep it simple and scannable
  • Use clear status indicators (operational, degraded, outage)
  • Make it mobile-friendly
  • Allow email/SMS subscriptions for updates

Common Monitoring Mistakes to Avoid

1. Only Monitoring the Homepage

Your homepage might be up while your checkout is broken. Monitor all critical user journeys.

2. Ignoring Response Time

A site can be “up” but unusably slow. Set response time thresholds:

  • Good: < 500ms
  • Acceptable: 500ms - 2s
  • Slow: > 2s (investigate)

3. Not Testing from Multiple Locations

A server issue might only affect certain regions. Use geographically distributed monitoring points.

4. Setting Unrealistic Timeouts

Setting a 30-second timeout means waiting 30 seconds before detecting an issue. Use reasonable timeouts:

  • Web pages: 10-15 seconds
  • APIs: 5-10 seconds
  • Simple health checks: 5 seconds

5. Forgetting to Monitor Dependencies

Your site depends on third-party services. Monitor:

  • Payment processors
  • Authentication providers
  • CDN availability
  • Third-party APIs

6. Not Having a Runbook

When alerts fire at 3 AM, you need clear instructions. Create runbooks that include:

  • Common causes and solutions
  • Who to escalate to
  • Recovery procedures
  • Rollback instructions

Building Your Monitoring Strategy

Start Small, Then Expand

  1. Begin with 3-5 most critical endpoints
  2. Add response time thresholds
  3. Configure notification channels
  4. Create a basic status page
  5. Gradually add more monitors as you learn

Review Regularly

Schedule monthly reviews to:

  • Check for new critical endpoints
  • Review alert history and tune thresholds
  • Update contact information
  • Test notification channels

Document Everything

Maintain documentation for:

  • What is being monitored and why
  • Alert thresholds and rationale
  • Escalation procedures
  • Recovery runbooks

Conclusion

Effective monitoring is not about watching everything - it is about watching the right things, at the right frequency, and responding appropriately when issues arise. Start with the basics, learn from incidents, and continuously improve your setup.

With SiteAwake, implementing these best practices is straightforward. Our platform provides flexible monitoring options, intelligent alerting, and beautiful status pages - everything you need to keep your services running smoothly.

Ready to improve your monitoring? Get started with SiteAwake today.

Need help setting up your monitoring strategy? Contact us at support@siteawake.com