Website Monitoring
Website monitoring that goes beyond 200 OK
Your uptime tool says 200 OK. Your users see a broken checkout page. Sitewatch catches the silent failures that uptime monitors miss entirely -- broken scripts, missing stylesheets, redirect loops, and pages serving the wrong content type.
- Verify pages actually work, not just that servers respond
- Validate every linked asset's HTTP status and content type
- Get alerts across 6 channels including Slack, email, and PagerDuty
Silent breakage detected
Detected in last check
Affected components
Recent activity
- checkout-form.css -- 404 Not Foundjust now
- main.bundle.js -- MIME type mismatchjust now
- hero-image.webp -- 200 OK, image/webp1m ago
- HTTPS redirect -- 301 to secure URL1m ago
Beyond uptime
What does website monitoring actually check
Full page verification
Sitewatch fetches your page, parses the HTML, and sends HEAD requests to every linked script, stylesheet, image, and font. If an asset returns a bad status code or wrong MIME type, you know about it.
SHA-256 page fingerprinting
Every page's HTML content is hashed with SHA-256. When the structure changes unexpectedly, Sitewatch flags it -- so you catch deploy regressions and content drift automatically.
HTTP-based page analysis
Sitewatch fetches your pages over HTTP and parses the HTML to extract every linked asset. No browser required, no JavaScript overhead -- just fast, reliable detection.
11 detection rules
Missing assets, MIME mismatches, redirect loops, host drift, non-HTML pages, unavailable sites, site down, slow response, API errors, API response mismatches, and broken links. Eleven specific failure types that uptime tools are blind to.
Configurable check intervals
Set check frequency per site -- from every 30 minutes on Free to every 5 minutes on Pro. Need to verify a deploy right now? Trigger an on-demand check from the dashboard or via deploy hooks.
The "up-but-broken" problem
Your server returns 200 while users see a broken page. A missing stylesheet, a script returning HTML instead of JavaScript, a redirect loop -- all invisible to uptime tools. That is what website monitoring with Sitewatch solves.
6
Failure types detected
2-of-3
Confirmation before alerting
100%
Page coverage
11 detection rules
What we detect
Asset failures
- Missing assets -- scripts, stylesheets, images returning 404 or 5xx
- MIME type mismatches -- a JS file served as text/html breaks silently
- Non-HTML pages -- your URL serves JSON, XML, or a download instead of a webpage
Infrastructure failures
- Redirect loops -- circular redirects that leave users on a blank page
- Host drift -- your domain resolves to an unexpected server or IP
- Unavailable sites -- the page cannot be reached at all
Transparent process
How website monitoring works with Sitewatch
Fetch your page over HTTP
Sitewatch makes an HTTP request to your URL and retrieves the full HTML response, just like a real visitor's browser would.
Parse HTML and extract assets
The HTML is parsed to extract every linked script, stylesheet, image, and font reference from the page.
HEAD-request every asset
Each discovered asset gets a HEAD request to verify its HTTP status code and MIME content type. A CSS file returning 404? A script served as text/html? Caught.
SHA-256 fingerprint the page
The page HTML is hashed with SHA-256 to detect structural changes. Combined with asset checks, this gives you a complete picture of every monitored URL.
Why Sitewatch
Website monitoring vs. uptime monitoring
| Feature | Uptime tools | Sitewatch |
|---|---|---|
| What's checked | Server responds with a status code | Page and every linked asset verified |
| Asset verification | Invisible -- not checked at all | Every JS, CSS, image, font validated |
| Content type | Ignored completely | MIME type verified for every asset |
| Page structure | No idea if content changed | SHA-256 fingerprint detects changes |
| Detection method | Ping or simple HTTP check | Fetch, parse, validate every asset |
| Evidence quality | Up or down -- that's it | Full incident report with affected assets |
What's checked
Asset verification
Content type
Page structure
Detection method
Evidence quality
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Sitewatch goes beyond uptime. It fetches your page, parses the HTML, and validates every linked asset -- checking HTTP status codes and MIME content types. It also SHA-256 fingerprints your page HTML to detect structural changes. You get alerted when assets go missing, serve the wrong content type, or when your page structure changes unexpectedly.
Uptime monitors ping your server and check for a 200 status code. That tells you the server is running -- nothing more. Sitewatch checks what actually loads on the page. A broken JavaScript bundle, a stylesheet returning a 404, a script served with the wrong MIME type -- these all happen while your server returns 200 OK. Uptime tools see green. Your users see a broken page.
Sitewatch runs 11 detection rules: missing assets (404s on scripts, stylesheets, images), MIME type mismatches (assets served with wrong content type), redirect loops, host drift (domain pointing to wrong server), non-HTML pages (URL serving JSON or downloads instead of a webpage), unavailable sites, site down, slow response, API errors, API response mismatches, and broken links.
Check frequency is configurable per site. Free plans check every 30 minutes, Pro plans as often as every 5 minutes. On-demand checks are available anytime from the dashboard or via deploy hooks -- useful after deploys, DNS changes, or CDN updates.
Sign up for a free account (no credit card required), paste in the URLs you want to monitor, and Sitewatch runs its first website check immediately. Connect your preferred alert channels and you're fully set up in under two minutes. The free plan covers 1 site with 7 days of data retention.
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