Website Monitoring Best Practices
Effective monitoring helps you catch issues before they affect your visitors. This guide covers best practices for monitoring your website and services.
What to Monitor
Uptime/Availability
Is your website accessible? Uptime monitoring checks your site regularly and alerts you when it goes down.
Performance
How fast does your site load? Performance monitoring tracks page load times and identifies slowdowns.
SSL Certificates
Is your certificate valid? SSL monitoring alerts you before certificates expire.
Domain Expiration
When does your domain expire? Domain monitoring prevents accidental lapses.
Security
Is your site secure? Security monitoring checks for malware and vulnerabilities.
Setting Up Effective Monitoring
Choose Check Intervals
- Critical services: Every 1-5 minutes
- Standard websites: Every 5-15 minutes
- Low-priority services: Every 30-60 minutes
Set Up Multiple Check Locations
Monitor from different geographic regions to catch location-specific issues.
Configure Alert Thresholds
- Avoid false alarms with reasonable thresholds
- Set different thresholds for warnings vs. critical alerts
- Require multiple failed checks before alerting
Alert Configuration
Notification Methods
- Email - Good for non-urgent alerts
- SMS - Best for critical issues requiring immediate attention
- Slack/Teams - Good for team awareness
- Phone calls - For critical 24/7 alerting
Escalation
Set up escalation for critical issues:
- First alert to primary contact
- If not acknowledged, alert secondary contact
- If still unacknowledged, alert management
Responding to Alerts
- Acknowledge - Let others know you're handling it
- Investigate - Check the actual status and error logs
- Communicate - Update stakeholders if needed
- Resolve - Fix the issue
- Document - Record what happened and how it was fixed
Avoiding Alert Fatigue
- Only alert on actionable issues
- Reduce noise from expected maintenance
- Group related alerts together
- Review and adjust thresholds regularly
Regular Review
Monthly, review your monitoring setup:
- Are all critical services monitored?
- Are alert contacts up to date?
- Have there been false alarms to address?
- Are there new services that need monitoring?
Faciotech Monitoring Services
Faciotech offers monitoring services for your websites and applications. View our monitoring plans or contact us to learn more.
