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We confirm errors through two independent ISPs to reduce false alarms, and we alert you to problems by email as soon as we detect and confirm them. You also receive weekly status reports detailing the number of visits our robots made to your site, the current configuration of the service, and the time and duration of all outages to help you detect outage patterns. The reports contain the information you need to diagnose and solve the problems, including traces of the route for communication outages.
 
1. DNS Test
This test checks that your IP address is available to your visitors, and reports problems right away so you can ensure traffic keeps flowing to your site.
The DNS test does the following:
- Checks your IP address is available every 10 minutes
- Checks the accessibility and configuration of both your primary and backup authoritative Name Servers
- Provides a trace of the route if your Name Server is unreachable to help diagnose the problem
Passing the DNS test indicates that browsers should be able to look up the IP address for your domain. This is the first step to viewing a page from your site.
2. Ping Test
Ping is a simple, low-level message that confirms that your Web server's hardware is operational and connected to the Internet.
The Ping test does the following:
- Pings your Web server every 10 minutes to ensure it's reachable and responding
- Provides a trace of the route if your server is unreachable
- Filters out transient errors by reporting only consistent errors reported through multiple ISPs
Passing the Ping test confirms basic connectivity, but does not indicate whether the pages of your Web site are available to browsers.
3. Fetch Test
The Fetch test sends HTTP requests to your server to check whether it is operational, and able to serve the pages to a browser like Internet Explorer.
The Fetch test does the following:
- Checks the HTTP response for a URL on your Web server every 10 minutes
- Catches HTTP errors such as "Not Found" or "Access Denied"
- Reports very slow server response with a "Timeout" error
- Fetches the contents of the URL if the Web server indicates it has changed since the last visit
Passing the Fetch test confirms that your Web server is responding to browser requests for the pages of your Web site, but does not mean that the correct page content is being served.
4. Content Test (Prohibited Phrases)
The Content test cannot guarantee that the page served is exactly as you intended, but it will catch many common problems. You may have seen Web sites that give a directory listing instead of the content of the root page of the site. Also, sites often report "log full" or similar errors if they access a database. The Content test will catch these errors and many more. To validate the content of your URL, we compare it to a specification that defines "prohibited" and "required" phrases.
A prohibited phrase is one that often indicates a problem, such as "log full" or "odbc." By checking for these phrases we are able to catch many common non-http errors. A "Directory Listing" page is a valid page, but since it is likely not what you intended we raise an alarm as soon as we see it.
- We check your URL for prohibited phrases every 10 minutes.
- An email alarm is raised if any prohibited phrase is found on the URL.
- The stock list of prohibited phrases detects typical problems such as "syntax error" and "log full."
- If any stock prohibited phrase is used intentionally on the URL, it is removed from the prohibited list. A support specialist confirms all prohibited phrase alarms and modifies the list used for your URL as necessary. You are informed of any configuration changes.
- We keep a copy of the HTML source for your URL at the time of the most recent Content error. The source is available on request, and may be helpful in diagnosing the problem, particularly if the error is intermittent.
5. Content Test (Required Phrases)
A required phrase is one that must be present for the content to be correct. By raising an alarm when a required phrase goes missing we catch many corrupted uploads and low-level problems that do not raise a prohibited phrase. If a human or system error results in important content going missing on your URL, this test can sound the alarm.
- We check your URL for required phrases every 10 minutes. We raise an email alarm if any are missing.
- There are no stock required phrases. A support specialist will visit your URL and define a set of phrases when you subscribe.
- As a final safeguard against unauthorized edits, including corruption by hackers and viruses, we can optionally raise an alarm each time the page changes.
You may edit or expand the phrase lists, as you require. Our support specialists are available to help define the content specification that will best protect your site.
6. Edit Test
As the administrator of your Web site, you likely have a pretty good idea of when the content of your site changes. To help you detect server or disk problems and unauthorized changes including hacker attacks and viruses, we notify you whenever we see the page change. If you're aware of the changes, just ignore the message. If you weren't expecting any changes, our message may be the first indication of a configuration or security problem.
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