Free Host Uptime Monitor Service!

by Sapphire (June 30, 2005)

If you’re concerned about knowing your sites are up, Host-Tracker is a must-have! All you have to do is register, fill in the sites addresses you want to check and tell it how often you want the site checked (ranges from every minute to every hour - I chose 30 minutes). Then, their network of twenty-some node partners will ping your site at the interval you chose, and you’ll get an email immediately if the site seems to be down. Then, they’ll check it every minute until it comes back up, and you’ll get another email when it does.

Last night, I got a notification that one of my sites - which I’ve been having trouble with lately - was down. I double-checked, and found that Cpanel was working, but the database-driven site was actually unavailable to visitors. A while later, I got another Host-Tracker email telling me the site was back up, and the outage had lasted 24 minutes. At that point, I was still unable to reach the site, but within a few minutes it was fine. Which probably means it came back up in some regions more quickly than it did in others.

And that’s another reason you need this service. I’ve had a host tell me my site wasn’t really down, it was just my IP. How can I argue with that? Drive to Canada, try to access it, call him up and say, “No, they aren’t getting me in Toronto, either?”

I’ve been advised by other Host-Tracker users that sometimes it gives you false alerts when it turns out the site really is fine - just a glitch somewhere in the neighborhood. Suits me fine - I’d rather have false alarms than completely miss an outage that’s frustrating my visitors. But as a quick, free, easy way to determine if your hosts are making the cut? I’m very impressed so far.

Posted in Hosting
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