2. While "free" might seem like a good thing, sometimes it really
is too good to be true and as many people learn, you get what
you pay for. If you're not paying anything, you're probably not
getting very much. In fact, some companies lure you in with a
"free" service that just can't serve all of your website monitoring
needs; so, you eventually upgrade to the paid plan - and it's not
really free after all. In such cases, the rate may have been higher
than what it would have been had you gone with a "paid"
service to being with. Here are some things to consider before
signing up for any "free" website monitoring service.
3. What Is The Method of Contact?
When it comes to website downtime, every second counts. Most
free website monitoring service providers will only contact you
via email when your site experiences downtime. If your email
servers are down along with your site's servers, then you won't
even receive the email, until the situation has been resolved.
Even if your email is completely separate from your website,
unless you check your email every minute of every day, chances
are that it will take you some time to become aware of the
website downtime – especially, if it occurs late at night or in the
wee hours of the morning. Paid services, on the other hand,
contact customers via phone and SMS text message in addition
to email, ensuring that you know of the website downtime - the
moment it happens.
4. What is Being Monitored?
When you sign up for a "free" website monitoring service, what
exactly is being monitored? Is it just ensuring that your website
is up or is it ensuring that every aspect of your site is functional
and that your site is performing as it should be? Free services
are often inferior in the level of protection they offer - only
notifying you, if your site goes totally dark; whereas, the
services you pay for also monitor your site's performance, as
well as all features and functions of your site.
5. How Many Locations Are Monitoring Your Website?
What happens if you use a free website monitoring service that
only has one server in one location, monitoring your site and
that location happens to have a server outage or a power outage?
Then, your site remains unprotected for - as long as it takes to
resolve the situation. Quality paid website monitoring providers
will have multiple servers in multiple locations to ensure
consistency in the monitoring of your website.
6. Quality Insurance is Never Free
The best way to look at website monitoring service is to see it as
an insurance policy that helps you minimize the downtime of
your site. It is an investment in your site's success. Quality
insurance is never free - and website downtime is something
you want to minimize at all costs. When you compare the
amount that downtime costs your company every minute,
multiply it by the amount of time that the service saves your site
from being down, and then subtract the cost of the website
monitoring service, you will soon see that this is actually one
service that actually pays for itself.
7. Alertra is a leading provider of website monitoring and alerting
services.Alertra's website monitoring cost is monthly and starts
at USD $0.20 (20 cents) per URL for 60 minute monitoring. It
will provide timely alert notifications and access to detailed
reporting. SinceApril, 2000,Alertra provided website monitor
services to more than 10,000 businesses and other organizations.
To know more aboutAlertra, visit www.alertra.com.
