Backend failure detection
When the backend breaks, the page breaks. Your uptime tool will not tell you.
Your backend stalls. Your server starts erroring. Your CDN quietly serves an error page instead of your content. Your uptime tool sees a server that answered and reports everything as fine. Sitewatch opens the page and checks it actually works, so backend failures that break the visitor experience get caught instead of ignored.
- Detects server errors and pages that stop being reachable
- Catches redirect loops and pages drifting to the wrong destination
- Finds missing files caused by backend or deployment failures
Checkout is erroring, homepage is fine
Plain-English summary
Your checkout page is returning a server error, so customers cannot pay. The homepage is loading normally, which is why nothing else flagged it.
01The gap in your stack
Your uptime tool says "up." Your visitors say "broken."
| Scenario | Uptime tools | Sitewatch |
|---|---|---|
| The homepage is reachable | Uptime tools: Yes — Detected | Sitewatch: Yes — Detected |
| Checkout is erroring while the homepage is fine | Uptime tools: No — Only the homepage is pinged | Sitewatch: Yes — Every critical page checked separately |
| Redirects send visitors in circles | Uptime tools: No — Not detected | Sitewatch: Yes — Loops caught and reported |
| The page lands on an unexpected destination | Uptime tools: No — Not detected | Sitewatch: Yes — Redirects followed and verified |
| Files the page needs went missing | Uptime tools: No — Not checked at all | Sitewatch: Yes — Every script, style and image verified |
| A blip wakes you at 3am | Uptime tools: Partial — Alerts on the first failurewarning | Sitewatch: Yes — Confirmed 2-of-3 times before alerting |
| The alert tells you what broke | Uptime tools: No — Up or down only | Sitewatch: Yes — The page, the component and the cause |
The homepage is reachable
- Uptime tools:
- Detected
- Sitewatch:
- Detected
Checkout is erroring while the homepage is fine
- Uptime tools:
- Only the homepage is pinged
- Sitewatch:
- Every critical page checked separately
Redirects send visitors in circles
- Uptime tools:
- Not detected
- Sitewatch:
- Loops caught and reported
The page lands on an unexpected destination
- Uptime tools:
- Not detected
- Sitewatch:
- Redirects followed and verified
Files the page needs went missing
- Uptime tools:
- Not checked at all
- Sitewatch:
- Every script, style and image verified
A blip wakes you at 3am
- Uptime tools:
- Alerts on the first failure
- Sitewatch:
- Confirmed 2-of-3 times before alerting
The alert tells you what broke
- Uptime tools:
- Up or down only
- Sitewatch:
- The page, the component and the cause
02The blind spots
Backend failures uptime tools pretend do not exist.
The page starts erroring
UNAVAILABLEThe backend behind a page fails and it stops loading — while the rest of the site carries on as normal.
Visitors get stuck in circles
REDIRECT_LOOPA misconfigured backend bounces visitors between pages until the browser gives up and shows an error.
The page lands somewhere else
HOST_DRIFTYour URL quietly redirects to a parked domain, a staging server or a CDN error page instead of your site.
A deploy breaks the page
ASSET_MISSINGA backend release changes where files live, so scripts, styles and images stop being found.
The server sends the wrong thing
MIME_MISMATCHA file arrives as the wrong kind of file — an error page where a script should be — so the browser refuses it.
The page quietly changes
PAGE-DRIFTA backend issue alters what the page outputs, and it stays wrong until somebody happens to look.
03Where it breaks
Every way a backend reaches your visitors.
A backend failure rarely announces itself. Select a layer to see how it surfaces — and how Sitewatch catches it.
availability
The page response
✕How it fails
A page starts erroring or times out while the rest of the site keeps working perfectly.
✓How Sitewatch detects it
Checks each critical page independently, so one broken route cannot hide behind a healthy homepage.
The page response
availabilityHow it fails — A page starts erroring or times out while the rest of the site keeps working perfectly.
How Sitewatch detects it — Checks each critical page independently, so one broken route cannot hide behind a healthy homepage.
Redirects
routingHow it fails — Visitors bounce between pages in a loop, or land on a parked domain instead of your site.
How Sitewatch detects it — Follows the full redirect path on every check and reports loops and unexpected destinations.
What the server sends
content typeHow it fails — The server returns an error page or raw data where a real webpage or a script should be.
How Sitewatch detects it — Confirms each response is the kind of thing it should be before the browser has to reject it.
Files the page needs
assetsHow it fails — A backend deploy moves or drops files, so scripts and styles the page depends on stop being found.
How Sitewatch detects it — Requests every referenced file and flags the ones that no longer resolve.
Page output
integrityHow it fails — A backend fault changes what the page renders without breaking anything outright.
How Sitewatch detects it — Fingerprints the page so unexpected structural changes stand out immediately.
04The full list
Every way a backend failure can break your site
Page-level failures
- Pages returning server errors or failing to respond at all
- Pages caught in circular redirects that leave visitors stranded
- Pages redirecting to an unexpected domain or a parked page
- URLs that stop serving a webpage and start serving raw data
File-level failures
- Scripts, stylesheets or images that can no longer be found
- Files served as the wrong kind of file, which browsers then refuse
05How it works
What happens on every check.
No test scripts. No credentials. Point Sitewatch at your pages and it does the rest — around the clock, from up to 2 regions on Pro.
- 1
Add your pages
Enter any URL and Sitewatch opens the page the way a real visitor would.
- 2
Checks what the page needs
Every script, stylesheet and image is identified and requested to confirm it arrived and is usable.
- 3
Finds a backend failure
A page erroring, a redirect looping, a file that moved during a deploy — anything that breaks the page for a visitor.
- 4
Confirms before it alerts
The problem has to fail 2 out of 3 times, so a momentary glitch never wakes anybody up.
- 5
Alerts you with the evidence
Slack, email, SMS, webhook, PagerDuty or Opsgenie — naming the failure, the affected page and which parts broke.
06What you get
Outcomes, not a feature list.
Know when checkout breaks, even though the homepage is fine.
Most uptime tools watch one URL. A backend failure rarely takes the whole site down — it takes down the one page that makes you money. Sitewatch checks each critical page on its own, so a healthy homepage can never mask a broken checkout.
Stop chasing alerts that were never real.
A single failed request means nothing — networks blip. Sitewatch re-checks before it wakes you: a problem has to fail two out of three times to become an incident, and one problem creates one alert, not a flood.
Every page
Critical pages checked separately, not just the homepage.
2-of-3
Retry confirmation before an alert fires, so blips never page you.
6 channels
Slack, email, SMS, webhook, PagerDuty and Opsgenie.
Stop backend failures from reaching your visitors
Free plan. No credit card. 2-minute setup.
07Questions
Backend monitoring questions, answered.
Sitewatch monitors web pages rather than arbitrary API endpoints. It opens your pages the way a visitor would and confirms they load correctly — catching server errors, redirect loops, pages landing on the wrong destination, and files that have gone missing. If your backend fails in a way that affects what visitors see, Sitewatch detects it.
Sitewatch opens each page like a real visitor, then works out every script, stylesheet and image the page needs and checks each one is really there and usable. If the page itself errors, times out or redirects somewhere unexpected, that is flagged too.
Every detected issue has to fail 2 out of 3 re-checks before it becomes an incident, so a momentary network blip never pages anyone. Sitewatch also applies a 30-minute cooldown per incident and groups repeat failures together — one problem creates one incident, not a flood of alerts.
Six: Slack, email, SMS, webhook, PagerDuty and Opsgenie, configured at the workspace level. Each alert names the failure, the affected page and which parts of it broke, so your team can start fixing instead of start investigating.
Every 30 minutes on Free, every 15 on Starter and every 5 on Pro, configurable per site. On-demand checks are available anytime from the dashboard, and deploy hooks let you verify a release the moment it ships.
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