Website Monitoring for WordPress: What You Should Track

WordPress powers a huge portion of the web, which means it also carries a unique set of risks: plugin conflicts, theme updates, caching problems, and security issues can all take a site down fast. The good news is that most WordPress outages are predictable and preventable when you monitor the right things.

This guide explains the key WordPress checks that catch problems early, with a practical setup you can maintain without a developer.

Why WordPress uptime slips

WordPress is modular by design. Plugins, themes, and hosted services work together to render pages, process forms, and handle checkout. If one layer breaks, the entire experience can fail. Monitoring helps you spot these issues as soon as they happen so you can revert a change or contact your host.

Start with the pages that generate revenue

Your homepage is not the only page that matters. Monitor the pages that create leads or sales. For most WordPress sites that includes:

• The homepage and a top service page.
• Contact or booking pages with forms.
• Key landing pages tied to ads or SEO.
• Checkout pages if you sell products.

Add a login and admin check

The WordPress login screen is a reliable indicator of core availability. If it fails, you likely have a server, database, or security issue. You can monitor the login URL for a successful response and a reasonable response time. Do not monitor the admin area itself, just the login page to keep it safe.

Monitor your plugin stack after updates

Plugin conflicts are a top cause of WordPress downtime. When you update plugins or themes, schedule a short monitoring window with tighter alerts. Focus on the specific pages that depend on updated plugins so you can confirm that everything still renders correctly.

Watch for redirects and certificate issues

WordPress sites often use plugins to manage redirects and SSL. A misconfigured redirect can point your domain to the wrong location. An expired SSL certificate can block visitors. Add checks for your canonical URL, redirect integrity, and SSL expiration so you catch issues before customers do.

Track response time and error spikes

Slow TTFB and higher error rates usually happen before a full outage. Monitor response time and HTTP status codes for early warning signs. If you see increased 500 or 503 errors after a plugin update, roll it back quickly.

Set alert thresholds that avoid noise

WordPress sites can have short spikes of downtime during deployments. Use confirmation checks and require two or three failed checks before alerting. This keeps alerts meaningful while still catching real outages within minutes.

Weekly review checklist

• Review uptime history and response time trends.
• Confirm SSL and domain expiration dates.
• Scan for unexpected redirects or content changes.
• Make sure alert destinations are still correct.