In this guide · 8 sections
- 01What uptime monitoring actually checks
- 02What to monitor on a small business website
- 03Free uptime monitoring tools compared
- 04SSL and domain expiry: the outages you can predict
- 05Alert routing: who gets told, and how
- 06False positives and how to reduce them
- 07Do it yourself or get help?
- 08Frequently asked questions
Short answer
Set up a free uptime monitor on your homepage and your most important page (checkout, booking or contact), with a keyword check so an error page counts as down. Add SSL and domain expiry alerts, which some free plans exclude. Send alerts to two people, not one.
What uptime monitoring actually checks
An uptime monitor is a computer elsewhere on the internet that requests your page on a schedule. If it gets no answer, a server error, or a timeout, it marks the site as down and sends an alert. When the page comes back, it sends a recovery message.
There are several types of check, and a small business site usually needs two or three of them.
| Check type | What it does | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| HTTP(S) | Loads the URL and checks the status code | Homepage and key pages |
| Keyword | Loads the page and looks for a word you choose, or its absence | Catching error pages and blank pages that still return "OK" |
| SSL expiry | Reads the certificate and warns before it expires | Every domain you serve over HTTPS |
| Domain expiry | Checks the registration end date | Your main domain and any you redirect |
| Heartbeat (cron) | Your system pings the monitor; silence means trouble | Backups, scheduled exports, automations |
What to monitor on a small business website
Start with the pages that cost you money when they break. Most outages that hurt small businesses are not the whole server going down, but one part failing quietly.
A sensible first set of monitors
A monitor that loads a form page does not prove the form sends email. Test the form itself by hand once a month, or after any plugin update. Our list of what website maintenance should check covers the manual checks that monitoring cannot do.
Free uptime monitoring tools compared
Free tiers change often, so check the pricing page on the day you sign up. Figures below are from each vendor's pricing page, approximate, as of October 2026, in US dollars.
UptimeRobot Free
Generous monitor countUS$0
- 50 monitors, checked every 5 minutes
- HTTP, keyword, ping and port monitors
- 1 basic status page
- SSL, domain expiry and slow-response alerts not included
Best for: Basic up/down and keyword checks.
UptimeRobot Solo
From US$9/mo (yearly)
- 10 or 50 monitors, checked every 60 seconds
- SSL and domain expiry alerts 30, 14 and 7 days ahead
- Status pages on your own domain
- 12 months of data
Best for: A small business that wants expiry alerts in one place.
Better Stack Free
US$0
- 10 monitors and heartbeats
- 1 status page
- Described as free for personal projects
Best for: Trying it out; check the terms for business use.
Sources: UptimeRobot pricing and Better Stack pricing. UptimeRobot's own feature table marks SSL and domain expiry monitoring as paid features, even though the free plan does include keyword checks.
SSL and domain expiry: the outages you can predict
An expired SSL certificate makes browsers show a full-page security warning, and most visitors leave. An expired domain takes down the website and the email together. Both are entirely predictable, which makes them the cheapest outages to prevent.
Certificates now expire more often. Under CA/Browser Forum rules, public certificates issued since 15 March 2026 last at most 200 days, falling to 47 days by 2029, as our guide to free vs paid SSL certificates explains. Automatic renewal handles this when it works. Monitoring tells you when it does not.
If you use Cloudflare, its SSL documentation explains that Cloudflare issues and renews the edge certificate visitors see. Your origin server may still have its own certificate, so monitor both if you can.
If it has already happened, see our guides to fixing an expired SSL certificate and what to do when a domain expires.
Alert routing: who gets told, and how
An alert that reaches one person's spam folder is not monitoring. Decide in advance who receives what.
- Two recipients, minimum. The owner and whoever looks after the site. People go on leave.
- Use a channel people see. Email for expiry warnings; a phone push notification, SMS or chat message for downtime.
- Do not route alerts only to the website's own email. If the domain is down, email on that domain may be down too. Use a mobile app or a second address.
- Write a one-line plan. "If the site is down for 15 minutes, call the host, then message our developer." Keep the host's support link with it.
A public status page is optional for most small businesses. It helps when customers log in to something you run, such as a portal or booking system, because it answers "is it just me?" without a flood of messages.
False positives and how to reduce them
If alerts fire for problems that are not real, people learn to ignore them. A few settings cut most of the noise.
Alert after two failed checks, not one
Most tools let you set a threshold such as "down for 2 checks" or "down for x minutes". A single failure is often a brief network blip.
Check from more than one location
Paid plans can confirm a failure from a second region before alerting, which filters out problems on one network route.
Allow your monitor through security tools
Firewalls and bot protection sometimes block monitors. Your monitoring service publishes its IP addresses so your host can allow them.
Set maintenance windows
Pause monitors during planned updates so a known outage does not page anyone.
Pick a stable keyword
Choose text that is always on the page, such as your business name in the footer, not a promotion banner that changes weekly.
Do it yourself or get help?
Setting up a free monitor takes about ten minutes and is worth doing today, even if you do nothing else. Add a keyword check, a second recipient and a calendar reminder for your domain and SSL renewal dates.
If you would rather not manage it, our Monitor plan (S$29 a month, cancel any time) checks your site every 5 minutes, watches SSL and domain expiry and email blacklists, and sends a monthly health report. Fixing problems is not included in Monitor; that is part of the Care and Care Plus plans.
Frequently asked questions
For basic up and down checks, often yes. A free plan checking every five minutes, with a keyword check on your homepage and checkout or booking page, catches most outages. Free plans may exclude SSL and domain expiry alerts, so add those through a paid plan, your registrar or a calendar reminder.
Every five minutes is enough for most small business websites. A one-minute interval suits online stores and booking sites where every minute of downtime loses orders. Shorter intervals mean faster alerts but more potential false alarms, so pair them with a rule that a page must fail twice before anyone is alerted.
Many error pages still return a normal response code, so a basic check sees success. A keyword check fixes this by looking for text that should always be on the page. Also check the specific page that broke, such as checkout, because the homepage can work while one page fails.
No. Monitoring only tells you something is wrong, usually within minutes. Someone still has to investigate and fix it, whether that is your hosting provider, your developer or a maintenance plan. The value is finding out before customers tell you, and knowing exactly when the problem started.
Yes. Automatic renewal fails more often than people expect, for example after a DNS change, a hosting move or a blocked validation check. Certificates now last at most 200 days for those issued since March 2026, so renewals happen more often. An expiry alert two to four weeks ahead gives time to fix it.