What you get
- One card, worst first: everything that needs fixing on your website, in one place
- Two levels: Requires fix and Needs attention
- A link to the details for each item, on the card that explains it
- Site-down alerts: your home page checked every 5 minutes, with an email when it’s down and when it’s back
- No setup. It works from the visits ReaderCount already counts
- All clear when there’s nothing to fix
What Site Health checks
| Item | When it shows | Level |
|---|---|---|
| Your website is down | We couldn’t open your home page on our last two checks. | Requires fix |
| Visits have stopped arriving | No visits for over 12 hours, when you usually get at least 20 a day. Usually a new theme or plugin has removed the ReaderCount code. | Requires fix |
| Broken links on your own pages | Readers followed a link on one of your pages to a page that’s missing. | Requires fix |
| Pictures or files didn’t load | A picture or file failed to load for readers. Requires fix once it’s been seen 20 times. | Needs attention or Requires fix |
| Slow pages | A page takes over 4 seconds to show its main content for 1 in 4 readers. | Requires fix |
| Script errors | The JavaScript on a page broke in readers’ browsers. | Needs attention |
| Outbound links stopped working | Links readers clicked that fail our daily check. | Needs attention |
| Missing pages people try to open | 10 or more visits landed on a “not found” page. | Needs attention |
| Visitors are down sharply | 40% or more fewer visitors than the period before, when there were at least 100. | Needs attention |
| Earnings problems | Earnings dropped sharply, or a shop stopped paying. See money alerts. | Needs attention |
Each item names an example, such as the page with the broken link, and links to the card with the full list.
Site-down alerts
- Every 5 minutes we open your website’s home page.
- If it fails twice in a row, about 10 minutes, we email you, with the error it gave or that it didn’t answer at all.
- We keep checking every 5 minutes, and Site Health shows Your website is down while it is.
- When it’s back, we email you again, with how long it was down.
That’s two emails for each outage, never one every 5 minutes.
What counts as down
- Down: no answer within 8 seconds, “not found” (404 or 410) or a server error (500 and above).
- Not down: pages that turn checkers away (401, 403 or 429) get the benefit of the doubt, so a firewall won’t set off false alarms.
- Redirects are followed, up to five, so a home page that sends readers to
/en/is checked properly.
On by default. Switch site-down emails off under Email Notification Preferences in Settings. Site Health still shows when your website is down.
Fixing what it finds
- Visits stopped: open Settings › Tracking Code Snippet › Verify snippet installation to check the code is on your home page.
- Broken links on your own pages: the Missing Page Report names the page with the link. Fix the link, or add a redirect.
- Pictures, files and script errors: see Site Problems Seen by Readers for each one and the page it’s on.
- Slow pages: Page Speed shows which part is slow, on phones and on computers.
- Visitors down: What to fix looks for the posts that lost the most.
The fine detail
| Alert emails | Site-down, trigger and money emails count towards your plan’s daily alert emails: 10 a day on Solo, 30 on Business. |
| Public stats page | Site Health is never shown on your public stats page. |
| The checker | Identifies itself as “ReaderCount link check”, so you can recognise it in your server logs. It’s never counted as a visitor. |
| Weekly email | The Monday email gives you what to fix for the week. |
| Plans | Included on every plan and in the 30-day trial. See plans and prices. |
Questions
Do I need to set anything up?
No. Site Health and site-down alerts work for every website you count with ReaderCount.
Will I get an email every 5 minutes while my website is down?
No. One when it goes down and one when it’s back.
My website blocks bots. Will it look down?
No. If your website turns the checker away with 401, 403 or 429, we don’t count it as down.
How do I turn site-down emails off?
In Settings, under Email Notification Preferences.
Is this a replacement for a full uptime service?
It checks your home page every 5 minutes and tells you when it goes down and comes back. If you need checks from many countries, status pages or text messages, use a dedicated uptime service alongside it.
Still have a question? Get in touch and we’ll help.