Uptime monitoring
Know straight away when your site goes down, so you can fix it before your visitors even notice.
What is uptime monitoring?
Uptime monitoring is the practice of regularly checking whether a website responds to visitor requests, so problems get caught and fixed before they cost you traffic. DomainDash checks your site as often as every minute from servers around the world, tracks response time, and alerts you the moment something goes wrong — whether it's completely unreachable or just running slow.
How uptime checks work
Every few minutes, DomainDash sends a request to your site, just like a real visitor would. We look at three things:
- Did your site respond? If we can't reach it at all, we mark it as Down.
- Did it respond correctly? We check that the HTTP status code matches what you expect (usually
200 OK). If something else comes back, we flag it. - How quickly did it respond? We measure the full response time in milliseconds and track it over time so you can spot trends.
Based on these checks, your site gets one of three statuses:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Healthy | Your site is responding normally and loading quickly |
| Slow | Your site is responding, but it's taking longer than usual |
| Down | Your site isn't responding or is returning an unexpected error |
The check frequency is configurable, anywhere from every minute to every 15 minutes. More frequent checks catch problems faster, but less frequent checks are perfectly fine for sites that don't change often. Adjust this in your site settings.
Understanding your uptime data
When you open a site, you'll see a few key pieces of information at the top:
- Uptime percentage: the proportion of checks that came back healthy in your selected timeframe. Anything above 99.5% shows in green.
- Average response time: how long your site typically takes to respond, in milliseconds. Under 300ms is great, under 800ms is OK, and anything above that is flagged as slow.
- Total checks: how many individual checks we've run in the current timeframe.
Below these stats, a response time chart shows how your site's response speed has changed over time. Each point on the chart represents a check. Switch between different timeframes, from the last hour right up to a full year, using the buttons at the top of the page.
The check history
Scroll down to see every individual check we've run, most recent first. Each row shows:
- The HTTP status code (like
HTTP 200) - The response time in milliseconds
- Which region the check ran from
- When it happened
For the most recent check, you'll also see a timing breakdown that shows how long each phase of the connection took: DNS lookup, connecting to the server, waiting for a response, and downloading the page. This is handy for understanding where the slowness is if your site isn't performing well.
How long do we keep check history?
Your plan determines how long detailed check history is retained. Upgrade your plan for longer history.
Common uptime issues
When DomainDash flags an uptime problem, the uptime troubleshooting section walks you through what's happening and how to fix it. The most common ones:
- Site is down — start here if you're not sure which issue you have.
- Connection refused — the server is actively rejecting connections. Usually a stopped web server or firewall rule.
- Connection timeout — the server isn't responding at all. Usually overload, a deadlocked process, or a silent firewall drop.
- DNS resolution failed — the domain can't be resolved to an IP address.
- HTTP 5xx response — 500, 502, 503, 504. The server is broken or overwhelmed.
- Site responding slowly — DomainDash shows Slow. Guides you through isolating the bottleneck phase.
See all uptime troubleshooting pages for the full list.
If your site goes Down, DomainDash opens an incident automatically and sends you a notification. See How incidents work for more on that.
Frequently asked questions
How often does DomainDash check my site for uptime?
DomainDash runs uptime checks anywhere from every minute to every 15 minutes, depending on your plan and per-site settings. Paid plans default to every minute. The free plan runs less frequent checks.
What does the Slow status mean?
Slow means your site is still responding, but it's taking longer than usual to return content — typically above 800ms average response time. The site is reachable, just sluggish. Slow status doesn't trigger urgent alerts but is included in the daily digest.
How is uptime percentage calculated?
Uptime percentage is the proportion of checks that returned a healthy status over the selected timeframe. Anything above 99.5% is highlighted in green. Slow checks count as healthy for uptime percentage; only Down checks reduce it.
Can DomainDash monitor a site that requires authentication?
DomainDash checks public URLs only. For an authenticated site, configure a public health-check endpoint (such as /health or /ping) that returns a 200 status code without requiring login, then point DomainDash at that path in your site settings.
Why isn't my site marked as Down when it's broken?
DomainDash uses a confirmation process — a single failed check doesn't open an incident. Critical issues like complete outages need two consecutive failed checks before the site is marked Down. This filters out one-off network blips that don't represent real outages.
Related
- SSL certificates for monitoring your site's security certificate
- Regional checks for comparing performance from different parts of the world
- How incidents work for what happens when your site goes down