It is a well-known fact that the average web user is fairly impatient. By most estimates, the typical page view lasts for fewer than 10 seconds if a visitor does not find something of particular interest—and even then, you have usually just minutes of that individual’s attention before he or she will bounce to the next site. This is one of the reasons that website tools such as synthetic monitoring have become vital to online businesses.
Tools of the Trade
Synthetic, or active monitoring is one of many tools webmasters employ to gauge the performance of sites in a quantitative fashion. In this particular process, behavioral scripts execute a series of actions designed to emulate those of a theoretical human user. These scripts are typically run at set intervals in order to monitor performance metrics, such as response time and availability.
The resulting data can be extremely valuable, enabling webmasters to determine if a site or particular application is functioning properly before problems affect real customers. Costly downtime and performance issues can be identified and addressed before they become detrimental to business through lost revenue and damage to a site’s reputation.
Other Monitoring Methods
In contrast to active monitoring, passive monitoring is a practice that revolves more around analyzing real-world data, compiled based on logs of actual user activity. Although this does reduce the ability to preemptively resolve technical issues, passive monitoring can actually be of greater value for other aspects of measuring performance.
For example, active monitoring is performed at intervals, usually scheduled during periods expected to bring lower amounts of traffic. Therefore, passive monitoring methods would be more effective in identifying problems that occur during more heavily trafficked hours, as well as troubleshooting performance issues that have already occurred. It is for this reason that most network professionals believe that synthetic and passive monitoring should be used in conjunction for best results, rather than employing one method versus the other.
What is to Gain?
Measuring website performance is a crucial practice for any online business, not only to decrease the chances that customers will be unable to access your pages at any given time, but to establish a reputation of reliability. It is true that companies can’t always control website downtime any more than they can control credit card processing issues in stores—however, it is undeniable that both have the potential to impact critical operations, and customers who routinely experience any such inconvenience would be likely to take their business elsewhere.
Consider this example: your company runs an annual sale that coincides with a major event or holiday. This sale is featured to customers for five business days, and is responsible not only for a large percentage of your annual revenue, but also factors into your overall promotional strategy in a significant way. How much would your company stand to lose with just one day of downtime—or 20 percent of that sale’s duration?
Even if your site is assured to be available 99 percent of the time, you would still stand to average three full days of downtime each month. Don’t roll the dice when it comes to your website’s reliability—implement a sound website monitoring strategy today, and eliminate hurdles before they trip up your business.