Do you have a website or a blog? Would you like to receive instant
alerts as soon as your site goes down or becomes inaccessible to users?
Would you like to receive these downtime alerts as email, text messages
on your mobile phone, or both?
Most website owners use “freemium” website monitoring services to track the downtime and uptime of their sites. These service offer free plans but are often required to upgrade to the premium version for unlimited email or SMS alerts or if you would like to monitor a large number of websites.
Here’s how you quickly configure Google Docs to monitor the uptime /downtime of your website(s). This has to done just once and Google Docs will continuously monitor all your sites in the background. Let’s get started:
The uptime and downtime times get logged in the same Google Spreadsheet so you can use that data to analyze the performance of your web hosting company.
The script triggers every 5 minutes and then tries to fetch your website using URLFetchApp.fetch (a Google function similar to wget or curl). If the HTTP response code is anything other than 200, it indicates that there’s an issue with the underlying website.
It creates an event in your Google Calendar but with an SMS reminder - the event is set to expire in 30 seconds and thus you get an instant text alert on your mobile. If you aren’t getting text alerts on your phone, please ensure that your phone number is associated with Google Calendar as detailed in this tutorial.
from http://www.labnol.org/internet/website-uptime-monitor/21060/
Most website owners use “freemium” website monitoring services to track the downtime and uptime of their sites. These service offer free plans but are often required to upgrade to the premium version for unlimited email or SMS alerts or if you would like to monitor a large number of websites.
Build your own website monitoring tool with Google Docs, SMS alerts included
Monitor Website’s Uptime with Google Docs
You can use Google Docs to monitor the status your website(s) and, unlike the commercial services, Google imposes no restrictions. You can track any number of websites with Google Docs and it will send email /text alerts in case of any issues. And this Google Scripts based website monitoring tool is absolutely free as well.Here’s how you quickly configure Google Docs to monitor the uptime /downtime of your website(s). This has to done just once and Google Docs will continuously monitor all your sites in the background. Let’s get started:
- Sign-in to your Google account and then click here to copy this Google sheet into your Google Drive. You may use your Google Apps account as well.
- Put your website URLs in cell B2 (comma separated) and your email address in cell B3. If you wish to receive alerts by text messages, put Yes in cell B4.
- You’ll find a new Website Monitor menu in your Google Sheets toolbar. Click Initialize and you’ll get a pop-up asking for authorization. Grant the necessary access.
- Go to the Website Monitor menu again and choose “Start Website Monitor” to begin the monitoring process. Close the Google Sheet.
The uptime and downtime times get logged in the same Google Spreadsheet so you can use that data to analyze the performance of your web hosting company.
How Website Monitor works?
Internally, there’s a simple Google Script attached to the Google Sheet that does the monitoring.The script triggers every 5 minutes and then tries to fetch your website using URLFetchApp.fetch (a Google function similar to wget or curl). If the HTTP response code is anything other than 200, it indicates that there’s an issue with the underlying website.
How SMS Alerts Are Sent via Google
Google Apps Script can send email messages but the script employs a workaround for sending text messages.It creates an event in your Google Calendar but with an SMS reminder - the event is set to expire in 30 seconds and thus you get an instant text alert on your mobile. If you aren’t getting text alerts on your phone, please ensure that your phone number is associated with Google Calendar as detailed in this tutorial.
from http://www.labnol.org/internet/website-uptime-monitor/21060/
