Uptime monitoring guides
Practical, no-fluff articles on keeping websites, APIs and cron jobs up — and knowing fast when they aren't.
Uptime monitoring
Uptime Monitoring API: Create and Manage Monitors From Code
Automate uptime monitoring with an API - create monitors on signup, silence checks during deploys, feed a dashboard and sync monitors from a list.
7 min read
Check If Your Site Is Down From Claude, Cursor or VS Code (MCP)
Connect an uptime monitoring MCP server to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor or VS Code and ask what is down, why, and what changed - safely.
6 min read
DNS Monitoring: Catch Record Changes Before They Take You Offline
Which DNS records to monitor (A, CNAME, MX, SPF, DMARC, NS, CAA), how DNS outages really happen, how TTLs delay fixes, and dig commands to check them.
6 min read
Best Uptime Monitoring Tools in 2026 (Free and Paid, Compared)
UptimeRobot, Better Stack, Pingdom, StatusCake, HetrixTools, Cronitor, Uptime Kuma, Checkly and PingRobot compared on free plans, prices and strengths.
7 min read
API Monitoring With JSON Assertions
What to assert on an API or health response, how JSON paths like $.data[0].id work, real examples and the pitfalls that cause noisy or useless checks.
6 min read
Alert Fatigue in Uptime Monitoring: How to Get Fewer, Better Alerts
Cut uptime alert noise without missing outages - second-location confirmation, alert delays, reminders, maintenance windows, routing and sane timeouts.
6 min read
How to Monitor a WordPress Site (Uptime, wp-cron, Login Page)
Monitor a WordPress site properly - home page, a keyword on a real page element, the login page, the REST API and wp-cron with a heartbeat.
7 min read
API Monitoring: How to Monitor a REST API's Health Endpoint
Monitor a REST API with an HTTP check and a keyword like "status":"ok" on its /health endpoint, plus what to return, latency targets and auth tips.
6 min read
Which URLs Should You Monitor? A Checklist by Site Type
A practical checklist of the URLs, ports and background jobs to monitor for marketing sites, SaaS apps, online stores, APIs, WordPress and scheduled jobs.
7 min read
How to Monitor a Shopify Store (Storefront, Checkout, Apps)
What to monitor on a Shopify store, which parts Shopify runs for you, and which failures only you will notice, from DNS to apps to product pages.
6 min read
How to Avoid False Downtime Alerts
Why uptime monitors raise false alarms - network blips, tight timeouts, WAFs, rate limits, DNS - and how to stop them without hiding real outages.
6 min read
What Is Uptime Monitoring? How It Works and What to Monitor
Uptime monitoring checks your website, API or server on a schedule from outside and alerts you when it fails. Learn how it works and what to set up.
5 min read
TCP Port Monitoring - Watch Mail, Database and SSH Ports
TCP port monitoring checks that a server accepts connections on a port. Learn which ports to watch, how to test them and why to use 587 or 465, not 25.
5 min read
Keyword Monitoring - Catch Broken Pages That Return 200 OK
Keyword monitoring checks that a page contains expected text, catching error pages, blank templates and hacked content that still return 200 OK.
4 min read
How to Monitor Website Uptime for Free (4 Practical Options)
Four free ways to monitor website uptime, from a hosted free plan to a cron script, with setup steps, trade-offs and a checklist for reliable alerts.
5 min read
Cron Job Monitoring With Heartbeats (crontab and systemd)
Monitor cron jobs and systemd timers with heartbeat URLs. Copy-paste crontab and systemd examples that ping only on success, plus common pitfalls.
5 min readSSL & domains
ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR: What It Means and How to Fix It
ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR means the TLS handshake broke before any certificate check. Causes and fixes, tested with openssl s_client, curl and nmap.
6 min read
What Happens When an SSL Certificate Expires?
An expired SSL certificate triggers browser warnings and breaks APIs, webhooks and mobile apps. What users see, how to fix it fast and how to prevent it.
6 min read
What Happens When a Domain Expires? The Stages, Step by Step
When a domain expires, the site and email stop working, then come renewal grace, a 30-day redemption period and pending delete. Timelines and prevention.
6 min read
SSL Certificate Monitoring: What to Check and When to Alert
What SSL certificate monitoring should check (expiry, host names, chain, issuer), how far ahead to alert, and the renewal automation mistakes to watch for.
7 min read
NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID: What It Means and How to Fix It
NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID means the certificate does not cover the host name you visited. Wildcard rules, common causes and fixes.
6 min read
Missing Intermediate Certificate: Fixing an Incomplete SSL Chain
An incomplete SSL chain works in some browsers but fails in curl, apps and APIs. Why, how to detect it with openssl, and how to serve the full chain.
6 min read
47-Day SSL Certificates: The Lifetime Schedule and What It Means
Public TLS certificates drop to 200 days in 2026, 100 days in 2027 and 47 days in 2029. The exact dates, the validation reuse changes and how to prepare.
6 min readErrors & fixes
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED: What It Means and How to Fix It
ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED means nothing accepted the connection on that port. What it means at the TCP level, and fixes with curl, ss and firewalls.
7 min read
DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN: What It Means and How to Fix It
DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN means the domain name could not be resolved. Fixes for visitors and site owners, with dig and nslookup commands.
6 min read
My Website Is Down - A Step-by-Step Checklist
Website down? Work through DNS, TLS certificates, hosting, CDN, app errors, the database and recent deploys in order, with the exact commands to run.
5 min read
HTTP Status Codes - A Plain-English Reference for Monitoring
The common HTTP status codes from 1xx to 5xx, each with a plain-English meaning based on RFC 9110 and what it means for uptime monitoring.
7 min read
HTTP 504 Gateway Timeout - Causes, Timeouts and Fixes
A 504 Gateway Timeout means a proxy gave up waiting for the server behind it. Find the slow upstream, tune proxy_read_timeout, and fix the real cause.
5 min read
HTTP 503 Service Unavailable: Overload, Maintenance, Retry-After
HTTP 503 means a server is temporarily unable to handle requests. Learn the causes, how Retry-After works, and how monitoring should treat planned 503s.
5 min read
HTTP 502 Bad Gateway - What It Means and How to Fix It
A 502 Bad Gateway means a proxy got an invalid response from the server behind it. Learn the causes, the nginx log lines to look for, and the fixes.
5 min read
HTTP 500 Internal Server Error - Causes, Diagnosis and Fixes
What an HTTP 500 Internal Server Error means under RFC 9110, why your app returns it, and how to find the root cause in logs and fix it.
5 min readStatus pages & incidents
Scheduled Maintenance Without False Alerts: Maintenance Windows Done Right
How to pause uptime monitoring during maintenance - one-off and recurring windows, time zones, SLA impact, status page notices and a deploy script.
6 min read
What Is a Status Page? Examples and What to Put on It
A status page shows whether a service is working and lists past incidents. Learn public vs private pages, which components to list and how to word updates.
6 min read
Status Page Examples: What Good Ones Have in Common
What good status pages share: clear components, 90-day history bars, the current incident on top, maintenance notices, subscriptions and time zones.
6 min read
How to Put Your Status Page on Your Own Domain (status.yourcompany.com)
Point status.yourcompany.com at a hosted status page with a CNAME record. Why a subdomain, Cloudflare proxy settings, certificates, CAA and common errors.
6 min read
Incident Post-Mortem Template (Blameless, With an Example)
A blameless incident post-mortem template with every section explained, a filled-in example, and tips for running the review meeting and following up.
6 min read
Outage Notification Templates for Every Stage of an Incident
Copy-paste outage messages for investigating, identified, monitoring, resolved, scheduled maintenance and follow-up, for status pages, email and social.
6 min read
How to Create a Status Page (Step by Step, With Templates)
Create a public status page that customers trust. Choose components, connect monitoring, write incident updates and keep the page off your own servers.
4 min readSLAs & metrics
SLA vs SLO vs SLI - Definitions, Examples and Error Budgets
SLI is what you measure, SLO is the target you aim for, SLA is the promise with consequences. Clear examples, error budget math and a starter set.
7 min read
What Is MTTR? Mean Time to Recovery, MTTD and MTBF Explained
MTTR is the average time from failure to full recovery. Learn the formulas for MTTR, MTTD, MTTA and MTBF with a worked example and ways to lower them.
6 min read
Uptime Percentage Explained (99.9% vs 99.99% in Minutes)
How much downtime 99%, 99.9%, 99.99% and 99.999% uptime allow per year, month, week and day, how to calculate it, and how to measure it.
6 min read