For WordPress sites
Know when your WordPress site goes down.
UptimeWire checks the public addresses of your WordPress site from the outside and sends you an alert when a confirmed outage starts, and another when it ends.
- blog.example (home page)
- Up, 190 ms
- blog.example/contact/ (contact page)
- Up, 275 ms
- blog.example/wp-login.php (login page)
- Up, 330 ms
Each address is checked to see that it answers. Plugins, themes, and updates are not inspected.
What to monitor
Choose the addresses that show your site is really alive.
Each exact address counts as one website, with its own checks. A WordPress site often has pages that look fine while others are broken, so watch more than the home page.
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The home page
The first address to watch. A caching plugin may serve it from a stored copy, so it can keep answering for a while after the rest of the site has failed.
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A page that is not cached
The login page, wp-login.php, usually skips the cache. It has to be built by PHP and the database on every request, so it tends to fail when they do. It is public and needs no sign-in.
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A page that earns you money
A contact page, a booking page, a price list, or the checkout page of a shop. You can also alert when a phrase you expect, such as the name of a button, is missing from the page.
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Anything on its own address
A shop, a members area, or a staging copy on a subdomain can go down without the rest. Each counts as a separate website.
How a WordPress site goes offline
Most outages start with a change, not a crash.
These three are common on WordPress sites. Nobody is looking when they happen, and visitors see them at once.
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An update breaks the site
A plugin or theme update can leave a server error or an error message in place of your pages. A server error counts as a failure. If the error page answers normally, you can alert on the error text, or on a phrase that has gone missing.
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The site stays in maintenance mode
While WordPress updates itself it shows a short maintenance notice. If an update is interrupted, that notice can stay on for hours. It answers with a 503, and any answer outside 200 to 399 counts as a failure.
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Hosting runs out of room
A busy or cheap host can answer slowly, then not at all. Every check records how long the address took, and waits up to 15 seconds before it calls the answer a failure.
Dates matter too. An expired certificate or domain takes the whole site away. The SSL certificate guide shows how to keep ahead of it.
Be clear about what a green check means
An answering site is not a healthy site.
UptimeWire looks at your site the way a visitor does. It does not look inside WordPress.
What is checked
- Whether each address answers, and how fast
- Whether a page has, or lacks, a phrase you chose
- Its SSL certificate, domain, and DNS
- When an outage started, how long it lasted, and when it ended
What is not checked
- Which plugins or themes are installed, or whether they are out of date
- Security holes, malware, or whether the site was hacked
- Anything behind a login, a form, or a checkout
- Backups, disk space, or the health of the server
UptimeWire reads addresses, not platforms, so it works the same on any WordPress host. There is no WordPress plugin yet. One is planned, but it is not built and has no date, and you do not need it. WordPress is a trademark of its owner. UptimeWire is not affiliated with or endorsed by it.
Looking after more than one site
One account for every WordPress site you run.
If you build or maintain WordPress sites for other people, add each client site to one account and label it with the client. You hear about a problem before the client does.
See monitoring for agencies and freelancers for client labels, status pages, and reports.
Who hears about it
- Email and Telegram on every plan, for outages, recoveries, and certificate, domain, and DNS warnings
- Discord and webhooks from Starter, for outages and recoveries
- Slack and Microsoft Teams from Business, for outages and recoveries
Delivery to live services is still being verified. See the integrations directory.
Plan fit
Start with one site. Add more as you take them on.
How many websites you need depends on how many addresses you watch, not on how many sites you own.
One site
Free
Watch the home page. Checked every 5 minutes.
A few sites, or one site in detail
Starter
Room for 10 websites: a home page, the login page, and key pages. Checked every 3 minutes.
Many client sites
Agency
Room for 100 websites, grouped by client. History by plan: Free 30 days, Starter 90 days, Business 1 year, and Agency 2 years.
Frequently asked questions
Before you start.
Do I need a WordPress plugin?
No. UptimeWire requests the public addresses of your site from the outside, so nothing is installed on it. A WordPress plugin is planned, but it is not built and has no date.
Will it notice a white screen or an error page?
If the site answers with a server error, yes: any answer outside 200 to 399 counts as a failure. If an error page answers normally, you can set a text alert on that address, to fail when the page has a phrase such as WordPress's database error message, or when a phrase you expect is missing.
Which WordPress addresses should I monitor?
Start with the home page and the login page, wp-login.php, then add the pages that matter to your business. Each exact address is one website.
Can it watch the admin area?
No. It does not sign in, so it cannot see inside wp-admin. Use the public login page, which answers without a password, to see that the site is reachable.
Does it find security problems or outdated plugins?
No. UptimeWire tells you that a site stopped answering, not why, and it does not scan for malware, security holes, or old plugins.
Does it work with WooCommerce?
Yes. A WooCommerce shop is a WordPress site, and UptimeWire reads its public addresses. Add the shop page, the cart, and the checkout page. It checks that each address answers. It does not add anything to a cart or take a payment.
If your WordPress site stops answering, hear it from us first.
Monitor your site for free, with all four checks included.