How to Track Website Downtime History

Downtime history helps you understand reliability over time, identify patterns, and prove performance to stakeholders. Without a clear history, outages feel random and hard to address.

Use this guide to track downtime history in a way that supports better decisions and fewer surprises.

Define what counts as downtime

Set a clear threshold for what qualifies as a real outage. Many businesses define downtime as two or more failed checks within a short window.

Use monitoring logs as your source of truth

Monitoring tools capture timestamps, error codes, and response times. This provides objective data instead of guesswork.

Group incidents by type

Classify incidents by cause: hosting failures, DNS issues, SSL problems, or application errors. This helps you prioritize fixes.

Track duration and impact

Record how long each outage lasted and the estimated business impact. This reveals which incidents caused the most damage.

Review trends monthly

Monthly reviews highlight patterns such as recurring outages after updates or seasonal traffic spikes. This helps you invest in the right fixes.

Share reports with vendors

Downtime history helps you hold vendors accountable and negotiate better service terms.