Free website health check for every layer

A homepage that loads can still have a certificate expiring next week or a mail IP on a blocklist. Run each layer through a free checker now, then let Uptimia repeat the checks on a schedule and alert you when one fails.

Start free trial → Run the free checks
30-day free trial No credit card GDPR-ready

Problems behind a working homepage

An up/down check only asks whether the homepage answers, and here it does, in 412 ms. Underneath, the certificate has 12 days left, DMARC is still on p=none and the mail IP is on a blocklist.

No visitor has run into these yet. The certificate has 12 days left, the DMARC fix is one DNS record, and the listing can be cleared before the next invoice run, so every fix can be done this week.

A free checker for every layer

Run a layer's checker once, then put a monitor on it to repeat the check. The checkers need no account, and each result sits at an address you can send to whoever does the fix.

Every checker keeps its result for 14 days at a link you can forward. 14 d

Where health results appear

Results show up on the checker's permalink, on the dashboard and in scheduled reports.

A result page with its own address

Every free checker shows the latest result at a permalink for the domain you checked, for up to 14 days. Send it to the host or the mail provider, and they open the same finding you saw, with nothing to install or sign up for.

Needs your attention

The dashboard panel lists every monitor with an open incident and the severity its monitor gave it. A certificate with more than 45 days left, or a listing on one of the smaller blocklists, shows as Trouble. Critical is the default for an outage, a certificate inside 45 days, and a Spamhaus or Barracuda listing, so you can see which incidents to handle first.

Expiry and malware counts

Reports carry SSL-expiring, domains-expiring and infected counts beside uptime, daily to yearly, as PDF, HTML or CSV. DNS, API and heartbeat monitors are not in reports; their history stays on the monitor page.

Monitor the layersthat can change between checks.

Uptimia re-checks reachability, certificates, domain, DNS, blacklists, speed and malware on their own schedules, and the alert names the layer that failed.

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Get alerted when a layer fails

Each layer you watch is a separate monitor with its own history. Its alerts go to the same channels as an outage.

Expiry warnings up to 90 days ahead

Pick the warning window on each SSL and domain monitor, 1 to 90 days ahead. Inside the window the incident is Trouble; at 45 days or fewer a certificate turns critical. A broken chain, a hostname mismatch or a revoked certificate alerts at once, whatever the window says.

Explore SSL monitoring →

Alert on record changes

The first sweep stores every watched record as the baseline. After that the nameservers are asked directly every 5 minutes, and an answer that differs opens an incident with the severity you gave that record group.

Explore DNS monitoring →

Listings and malware flags

The blacklist monitor re-checks the domain, the web IP and the mail IP every 15, 30 or 60 minutes. The virus monitor asks Google Web Risk once a day by default, and every hour while a threat is standing.

Explore blacklist monitoring →
  • SSL and domain alerts confirmed first. A failing check is re-run from other locations, and you choose how many must agree.
  • Severity set per layer. A certificate inside its warning window is Trouble and turns critical at 45 days or fewer; a listing on a major blocklist is critical from the first sweep.
  • Acknowledged changes become the baseline. Acknowledge a planned DNS change and the next sweep stops alerting on it.
Explore DNS monitoring → Explore monitoring assertions →
Acknowledged · the new answer becomes the baseline baseline

Check intervals for each layer

Monitors repeat the free checks on a schedule matched to how fast each layer can change. Each reachability check runs from one of 171+ locations, and a failure is re-checked from other locations before you are alerted.

  • Reachability as often as every 30 seconds. The same uptime check can read a keyword on the page or your health endpoint.
  • Slow layers checked less often. A domain's registry details refresh every 1 to 9 days, and the expiry date in them usually changes once a year.
Explore website uptime monitoring →
171+ checkpoints · 70+ countries 30 s

Watch your application's health endpoint

An endpoint like /health answers 200 and a small status body while the database, queue and cache behind it are fine. Uptimia watches it like any URL and, with a keyword or assertions set, reads the body, so a 200 that serves an error page still counts as a failure.

  • Uptime monitor with a keyword. Require ok in the body.
  • API monitor with assertions. Check the JSON field by field, and the response time with it.
  • Keep the endpoint uncached and cheap. It is called often, and a cached "ok" would keep reporting healthy through an outage.
Explore monitoring assertions → Explore API monitoring →

Also included

Scheduled reports

Uptime, certificates, domains and speed in one summary, sent weekly or monthly. Export it as PDF, HTML or CSV, or send stakeholders a public link to it.

Monthly · 1st at 08:00
Uptime99.98%
SSL expiring1
Domains expiring0
Infected0
PDF · HTML · CSV · public link

Public status pages

Show visitors each monitor's state and uptime on a public page, served from your own domain if you prefer.

status.example.com All systems operational
caldmont.com100%
shop.caldmont.com99.98%

Alert channels

Failures reach the channels your team already reads, one alert per failing layer.

EmailSMSSlackPagerDutyWebhookTeams

Recovery notices

When a layer recovers, everyone who got the alert gets the all-clear, with how long it lasted.

Blacklist · mail IP listed10:04
Blacklist · mail IP cleanRecovered after 9 min

Heartbeats for scheduled jobs

Backups and cron jobs cannot be checked from outside. They ping Uptimia when they run, and a ping that misses its schedule plus grace period opens an incident.

00:00expected 02:0024:00
Expected 02:00 · grace 15 min
Explore cron & heartbeat monitoring →

One dashboard for everything

Uptime, SSL, domain, DNS and blacklist monitors for the same site sit side by side, with one alerting setup.

caldmont.comUPTIME caldmont.comSSL caldmont.comDNS mail.caldmont.comBLACKLIST caldmont.comVIRUS

Health check examples by site type

An online shop, a client site before launch and a company domain with mail problems. Each lists what the checkers found, what to fix first, and what Uptimia does from then on.

Example 1Monthly check · online shop

Product images slowing a shop on mobile

The monthly pass on a WooCommerce shop. Homepage and checkout answer 200 in 1 hop, the blacklist is clean and the domain has 230 days left. The certificate has only 21 days left, and the mobile product page paints its largest element at 3.4 s, with images making up 1.9 MB of a 2.6 MB page.

Monitors that repeat it UptimeKeyword "Add to cart"SSL and domainWarn 30 days aheadSpeedLCP budget 2.5 sBlacklistEvery 15 minutes
What to fix and what Uptimia does →
Fix first
Resize and compress the product images, then rerun the page speed test from the same location. Ask the host why the certificate has not renewed yet.
What Uptimia does
The SSL monitor alerts on its first check, because 21 days already sits inside the 30-day window. From then on, an empty catalogue fails the keyword check like an outage. The speed monitor loads the page in Chrome from your chosen locations and marks the shop Degraded while its LCP readings stay over the budget. Explore website speed monitoring →
Example 2Pre-launch · client site

Missing intermediate on launch eve

DNS moved to the new host this afternoon and the certificate was issued an hour ago. The client opens the site on a phone tomorrow morning. Your desktop browser shows a padlock, but the SSL checker sees 1 of 2 certificates sent, and a phone that has never cached the intermediate will refuse the connection.

Monitors that repeat it UptimeOwn group per clientSSLChain checked · warn 30 days aheadDNSLaunch records as baselineReportMonthly PDF to the client
What to fix and what Uptimia does →
Fix first
Add the intermediate to the server's certificate file, collapse the redirects into 1 permanent hop, and turn on HSTS. The security headers checker's fix pack has the nginx, Apache and Cloudflare snippets to paste.
What Uptimia does
From launch on, a record change at the nameservers raises an alert within one 5-minute sweep. The SSL monitor checks the chain and warns 30 days before the certificate expires. Each month the client gets a PDF with uptime and the expiring-certificate and expiring-domain counts. Explore monitoring for many client sites →
Example 3Deliverability · company domain

Invoices landing in spam

Customers say the invoices never arrived, though the site is up. The website checkers all pass, so the run moves to DNS and the mail server. SPF uses 9 of its 10 lookups, DMARC is still on p=none, and the mail server's IP sits on one of the 12 mail-reputation lists the blacklist checker covers.

Monitors that repeat it BlacklistMail IP · every 15 minDNSTXT and _dmarc watchedMail serverSMTP and IMAP uptime
What to fix and what Uptimia does →
Fix first
Clean up whatever caused the listing, then ask for the delisting. Drop one include from SPF before the next service tips it over 10, and move DMARC to p=reject once the reports come back clean.
What Uptimia does
A relisting within 7 days of a delisting is flagged critical, and an edit to the SPF or DMARC record raises an alert. DKIM keys sit under a selector the DNS monitor does not watch, so rerun the DKIM checker after any change at your mail provider. Explore email server monitoring →

Run these checkson a schedule for your sites.

Set each layer's interval and severity, and send its alerts to the channels your team already reads.

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30 days free no credit card cancel anytime

How a website health check works

A website health check tests every layer a visitor depends on (reachability, SSL certificate, domain, DNS, email authentication, blacklist status, security headers, speed and malware) and reports which ones pass. Uptimia runs each check free on demand, and its monitors repeat reachability, SSL, domain, DNS (the SPF and DMARC records included), blacklist, speed and malware checks on a schedule and alert you when one fails.

01What is a website health check?+
A pass across every layer that can take your site away from visitors: is the server answering, is the SSL certificate valid, does DNS resolve correctly, does mail from the domain authenticate, is the domain on any blacklist, are the security headers in place, and does the page load at a reasonable speed. One failing layer is enough to lose visitors, so the check runs a separate test for each layer.
02How do I check my website's health for free?+
Use the checkers linked on this page: HTTP status, SSL, domain, DNS, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX, blacklist, security headers and page speed. Each is free, needs no account, and shows the result in seconds on a page you can send to whoever has to fix it. Results are kept for up to 14 days.
03How often should I run a health check?+
By hand, whenever something changed and once a month regardless. Failures arrive between manual checks too, and monitoring covers that gap. Uptimia monitors repeat most of the checks on each layer's own schedule and alert you when one fails. Reachability, SSL and domain failures are re-checked from other locations first.
04What should an application health endpoint return?+
HTTP 200 with a small body naming the state of each dependency, such as the database, cache and queue. Return an error status when a dependency is down, keep the endpoint uncached and cheap, and let a monitor read the body so a broken 200 cannot pass as healthy.
05What is the difference between a health check and a heartbeat?+
The difference is which side makes the call. A health check is Uptimia calling your site from outside. A heartbeat is your scheduled job calling Uptimia when it runs, and Uptimia opens an incident when the ping does not arrive on time. Backups and cron jobs have no address Uptimia can call, so they need a heartbeat.
06Which checker covers malware?+
The blacklist checker. Beside the DNS blocklists it runs 2 Google Safe Browsing checks, one for malware and unwanted software and one for phishing, and shows each as its own row. The monitor that keeps checking is virus monitoring, which asks Google Web Risk on a schedule from hourly to weekly, daily by default, and opens a critical incident on the first scan that finds the domain flagged.
07Does Uptimia monitor SPF, DKIM and DMARC?+
SPF and DMARC, yes. DNS monitoring watches the TXT record at the domain root, where SPF lives, and the _dmarc record, and alerts when either changes at the nameservers. DKIM keys sit under a selector name that the DNS monitor does not watch, so rerun the DKIM checker after any change at your mail provider. Neither monitor re-counts SPF lookups; the SPF checker does.
08How far ahead does Uptimia warn of an expiring certificate or domain?+
You choose, from 1 to 90 days ahead, on each SSL and domain monitor (the presets are 1, 3, 7, 14, 30, 60 and 90 days). A broken chain, a hostname mismatch or a revoked certificate alerts immediately whatever the expiry setting. Domain details are refreshed from the registry every day to every 9 days, as you set it.
09What grade should a healthy site get on the security headers checker?+
A or A+. The score is out of 100: a content-security policy is worth 25 points, HSTS 20, frame protection 15, and nosniff, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy and cookie flags 10 each. A+ starts at 95 and A at 85. A policy that does not govern scripts caps the grade at B. To keep a grade, an API monitor can assert that each header is still present on every check.
10Is the page speed test the same as speed monitoring?+
No. The free test runs Lighthouse twice, desktop and throttled 4G mobile, from the location you pick, and calls the page fast when the mobile run loads under 3 s with all three Core Web Vitals green. Speed monitoring loads the page in real Chrome from your chosen locations every few minutes, records LCP, FCP, TTFB and CLS each time, and marks the monitor Degraded when a budget you set is crossed or an image, script or stylesheet stops loading.
11Does the free plan cover continuous health monitoring?+
The free plan watches 1 website at 5-minute intervals; the free checkers on this page need no account. The 30-day trial opens every monitor type (uptime, SSL, domain, DNS, blacklist, speed and virus) with no credit card.

Check every layer of your site

Start with the free checkers, and add a monitor to any layer that can change overnight.

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30-day free trial SSL, DNS and blacklists watched Free checkers included No credit card
The free checkers need no account. A monitor starts from the same URL or domain you just checked.