You’ve secured your WordPress site, installed trusted plugins, and configured everything with care. But what happens when something still goes wrong?
If you’re not monitoring your site, you may not even know there’s a problem until a customer complains—or Google flags your domain.
Whether it’s a broken form, a slow-loading page, a redirect attack, or full site downtime, the key to minimizing damage is simple: know the moment it happens.
In this article, we’ll cover how to monitor your website for downtime, performance issues, and suspicious activity—the right way.
Why Monitoring Matters
Even well-built sites can go down or be compromised. A single plugin update, server misconfiguration, or brute-force attack can quietly take your site offline, expose customer data, or stop a key feature from working.
The longer it goes unnoticed, the more damage it causes—lost leads, failed payments, broken SEO, and damaged trust.
If your site supports your business, monitoring isn’t optional—it’s part of maintenance.
What You Should Be Monitoring
Downtime and Uptime Tracking
Know when your site is unreachable—whether due to server issues, DNS misconfiguration, or hosting outages.
Server Errors (404s, 500s, 502s, etc.)
Monitor for broken links, failed processes, and internal server errors that can quietly ruin the user experience or break key functionality.
Performance Slowdowns
A sudden spike in load time might mean a failing plugin, database problem, or attack in progress.
Suspicious Logins or Requests
Repeated failed logins, access from unusual IPs, and malformed URLs often signal bot attacks or scanning activity.
File Changes and Unknown Scripts
Unexpected edits to core files or new files appearing in your directories can indicate a successful breach.
Tools That Help You Monitor Effectively
Uptime Monitoring Tools
- UptimeRobot or Better Uptime – Get instant alerts if your site becomes unreachable.
- Pingdom – Adds performance tracking alongside uptime.
Set up checks for both your homepage and any critical paths like login, checkout, or contact pages.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
If your site matters to your business, consider using APM tools like:
- New Relic
- Datadog
- AppSignal
These tools show you what’s slowing your site down, which routes are causing errors, and which plugins or processes are using the most resources. They also alert you when something spikes or fails behind the scenes.
Server Log Monitoring
If you’re managing your own VPS or cloud server (e.g., via Apache or Nginx), you can:
- Collect logs from
/var/log/apache2/or/var/log/nginx/ - Pipe them into centralized tools like Logwatch, Logrotate, or ELK Stack (Elasticsearch + Logstash + Kibana)
- Use Fail2Ban or OSSEC to watch for failed logins or malicious access patterns
This gives you eyes on every request—good and bad—and helps track patterns that might otherwise be missed.
WordPress-Specific Tools
- Wordfence Security – Includes real-time monitoring of logins, file changes, and known threats.
- Activity Log or WP Security Audit Log – Track every user action inside WordPress.
- Query Monitor – Great for developers debugging plugin conflicts and database bottlenecks.
These are especially helpful for catching issues that originate inside WordPress itself, rather than on the server level.
What to Do When You Detect a Problem
- Downtime: Check your server status, DNS settings, and recent updates. Restore from backup if needed.
- Suspicious Activity: Change passwords immediately, check for new admin accounts, and scan for malware.
- Errors or Broken Pages: Roll back recent changes, check your logs, and restore the last known working version.
- Performance Drop: Check server load, database queries, and recent traffic spikes. Use APM data to pinpoint bottlenecks.
Final Thoughts
A secure and stable WordPress site isn’t just about preventing problems—it’s about detecting them quickly when they do happen.
Whether you’re running a personal blog or a high-traffic business site, monitoring gives you visibility and control. And with modern tools—many of them free or low-cost—you don’t have to fly blind.
Your website is running 24/7. Your monitoring tools should be too.