Website accessibility is literally the ability of users to access all of the services that a website provides. One measure of accessibility is uptime. It is measured in percentages, which show how long a site is available to users in each period. And the site owner should strive to keep this figure as close to 99.9% as possible. That is why it is crucial to constantly monitor the availability of the site and fix all problems as quickly as possible.
In more detail, the availability of the site means that the user can not only successfully enter the site. At the same time, the user must see all the content that the site owner plans to show him during the visit. Not a blank page or a piece of data, but all the important content. Only then can the site be considered accessible. In all other cases, the site has problems that can lead to unpleasant consequences. This is especially critical for business websites – in the case of complete or partial inaccessibility, customers will simply leave for a competitor.
Common problems of website accessibility
When errors occur on the site, they can have various consequences. Starting with partial inactivity of the resource and ending with its complete unavailability. And such problems can lead to all kinds of losses – from a decrease in the influx of new users or the loss of regular visitors, to financial and reputational losses.
But an experienced webmaster can easily fix any error that could cause your site to crash. This is because the webmaster knows where to focus his troubleshooting efforts. In most cases, all the causes of problems with the performance and stability of a website usually come down to a combination of several main problems.
One of the most common reasons for website downtime is problems with updates. And in this case, we are talking about updates to the service itself, as well as updates to the server side. It often happens that something goes wrong during updates. Or the updates themselves are unstable. This can cause many different problems, from lack of content to complete unavailability.
Also, one of the reasons for problems with the site may be an incorrect server configuration. After all, all virtual and non-dedicated servers contain multiple websites and multiple domains. This literally means they will have a lot more than one configuration file. And they are all managed by server software. If you delete one of them, you may have problems with the configuration file that is causing the problem. In addition, a web page error often occurs when there are other configuration issues, such as file recovery issues related to redirection.
You can even track a website from different locations on a host-tracker website monitoring service if you use a multi-regional website. This system will perform all the tests you specified from specific countries. And, on top of that, it will notify you whenever there is a problem with availability or any other indicator.
Accessibility issues for multiregional websites
Today, many companies have a website that works not only with one region, but also with many at once. Thanks to this, companies usually expand their audience. This is especially true for online stores. And there are often situations when a website is available in some regions, but not available in others.
For example, this can happen if an Internet service provider in any country has blocked a website or hosting. Or if the website was blocked in the regional DNSBL. In any case, this can cause problems that are not immediately apparent. And finding out the source of the problems can be very difficult.
However, this situation, as in the case of one regional website, has a solution. It consists in choosing the right tools for monitoring websites. And in this case, we are not talking about standard monitoring methods that many webmasters are used to. The ideal option is to choose the right automatic system for monitoring websites.
Best way for multiregional website monitoring
Monitoring a website is a difficult task itself for its owners or responsible webmasters. After all, a webmaster needs to perform a large number of diagnostic procedures to keep the site under constant surveillance. For beginners in this business, such activities are very difficult. For experienced website owners and professional webmasters, this requires a minimum of time.
But if the website was designed for a global audience, the situation becomes complicated. After all, it is necessary to carry out diagnostics from various parts of the world. It is almost impossible to solve it yourself with the help of classic tools. You will have to fine-tune manually for each possible region. But there is a more practical and effective approach to solving this problem. In this case, we are talking about using universal web services for monitoring websites.
And HostTracker is one of the best tools available to perform a website accessibility test. You can use this service, which is primarily designed for daily monitoring of the site 24/7. This will allow you to perform a large number of checks. If you need a simple tool to check ping – host tracker has one. If you need to validate all the content in your e-store – it also has a tool for it. And you can easily do everything in a short time and at once. You will be able to find out not only whether the site has stopped working, but also when and why.
Worldwide DNSBL monitoring
Unfortunately, even if the site owner takes all available measures and makes the site as safe as possible for users, it will not protect it 100% from being blacklisted. Indeed, sometimes just being on the same hosting or server as spammers or intruders is enough. Your site may even be blocked if it is in the pool of IP addresses next to malicious users. That’s why it’s important to know why sites end up in the DNSBL and how to avoid it.
And this is especially important for multiregional websites. Because almost every region on every continent has a couple of its own DNSBLs. And you will have to spend a lot of time talking to support and providing proof of the site’s safety. That’s why it’s very important to monitor the status of the site and prevent such problems. Or at least be fully armed in case there are problems.
The best way to do this is to use automated site monitoring systems such as host-tracker.com/en/ic/dnsbl-check at HostTracker. If only because it is simply impossible to manually check every blacklist. In addition, this platform provides a wide range of different services to fully monitor sites for all indicators. With this approach, the webmaster can not only prevent a site from getting into the DNSBL. The webmaster will also be able to easily respond to any threats to the stability and functionality of the site.