An online shop during a sale
The shop is checked every 5 minutes over a sale weekend. When it stops answering on Saturday night, the alert arrives at once and LayerAssist is already looking for the cause.
Know the moment your website goes down, and why.
LayerAssist checks your site from the outside every few minutes, alerts you when it stops answering, then does what an uptime checker can’t: finds out why.
At a glance
- Built-in monitorA built-in monitor checks that your site answers, from every 5 minutes to once a day. It needs only your site’s address: no login, nothing to install.
- Built-in monitorWhen your site stops answering, you get one alert in LayerAssist and by email, and another when it’s back.
- In chatThen it looks into why — domain, hosting, services, error logs — and, with your hosting connected, fixes the cause.
- Not available yetA page that loads but shows an error, such as “Error 500”, still counts as answering. The HTTP status codes guide covers those.
When a website goes down, nobody tells you
Most site owners find out their website is down from a customer, a lost order or a strangely quiet inbox. By then the site may have been offline for hours, and every visitor who saw an error went somewhere else.
Hosting companies rarely warn you. A full disk, a crashed database or an expired domain all look the same from the outside: the site simply stops answering. The longer nobody notices, the more it costs in sales, enquiries and search rankings.
Signs your site is down, or about to be
- The browser keeps loading, then gives up
- “This site can’t be reached” or “Server not found”
- Visitors say the site won’t open, while it works for you on and off
- A sudden drop in orders, form messages or visits
Why websites go down
Hosting or server trouble
The server is overloaded, out of memory or restarting, or the hosting company has an outage. Sites on cheap shared hosting feel it first when a neighbour uses too many resources.
A domain that no longer points to your site
An expired domain, a changed nameserver or a DNS record deleted by mistake sends visitors nowhere, even though the site itself is fine.
A web server or database that stopped
If the web server (Apache, Nginx, LiteSpeed) or the database stops, the site stops with it — after an update, a crash or a full disk.
A firewall or security tool blocking visitors
A firewall rule, a security plugin or a CDN setting can start refusing connections, sometimes only from certain countries or networks.
How LayerAssist keeps watch over your website
An uptime checker tells you that your site is down. LayerAssist tells you, then starts working out why.
It checks from the outside, like a visitor
On the schedule you choose, from every 5 minutes to once a day, it opens your site’s address and waits for an answer. These checks use no AI, so they don’t use up your monthly usage.
It alerts you once, not fifty times
One alert in the app and by email when the site stops answering, and one when it’s back. No flood of messages during a long outage.
It looks into the cause
When a check fails, LayerAssist investigates with the access you’ve connected: the domain, the hosting account, the server’s services and the error logs. You get a short explanation of what it found.
It fixes what you allow it to
With “Notify only” it just reports. With “Fix safely” it can handle routine fixes by itself, like starting a web server that stopped; bigger changes, like editing files, wait for your OK.
Example: a shop that went offline overnight
What it checks
- yourshop.com: no answer after 15 seconds
- Domain: points to your server
- Server: reachable over SSH
- Web server: stopped at 03:12 and can’t start again because the disk is full
What it changes
Removed the old log archives you approved and started the web server again
What you get
- You hear about an outage from LayerAssist, not from a customer
- The cause explained, not just a red dot on a dashboard
- One alert per outage, and a message when the site is back
- Checks every few minutes, with nothing installed on your site
Real situations
A business site nobody looks at
A clinic’s website is checked every hour. When its domain lapsed because the card on file had expired, LayerAssist said exactly what to renew, and where.
A freelancer with client sites
A web designer keeps a monitor on each client’s site, so a problem usually reaches the designer before it reaches the client.
How to set up website availability monitoring
Add your website
In LayerAssist, open Sites & servers and add your site’s address. For this monitor, that’s all it needs.
Choose the monitor
Open Automations, choose New automation, pick your site and select “Website availability” under Start from a template.
Pick how often
Every 5 minutes for a shop, every hour for a brochure site, or anything up to once a day.
Decide what it may do
Keep “Notify only” to get reports, or choose “Fix safely” for routine fixes. Connect your hosting or server so it can look deeper.
Questions about website availability monitoring
As often as you choose: every 5 minutes at most, once a day at least. The check itself uses no AI, so checking often doesn’t use up your monthly usage.
No. The check opens your site from the outside, the way a visitor does. Nothing is installed on your website or server.
No. You’re told once when the site stops answering and once when it’s back. How often LayerAssist starts investigating on its own depends on your plan.
Yes, as one active automation. Go includes 1, Plus 3, Pro 10 and Max 50.
Related guides
- In chatHTTP status codesFinds pages that answer 404, 500 or 503 errors, and fixes them.
- Built-in monitorServer servicesAlerts you when a service like your database stops.
- Built-in monitorSSL certificatesWarns before your certificate expires and fixes “Not secure”.
All monitoring guidesSee what each plan includesHow LayerAssist works
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