Advanced website monitoring

Advanced website monitoring

StatusGator’s advanced website monitoring settings allow you to customize how checks are performed against your site. These options help you reduce false positives, fine-tune request behavior, and handle protected endpoints.

How to access these settings

For an existing website monitor

1. Go to Monitors in the left navigation.
2. Find your website monitor and click the three-dots menu (⋯) → Configure (or click the monitor name).
3. Scroll to the Advanced section of the settings form.
4. Adjust options and click Save.

Timeout

Define the maximum time allowed for a request to complete:

• 5 seconds
• 15 seconds
• 30 seconds (default)
• 60 seconds

Choose a lower timeout for quick-response sites or a higher timeout for slower services.

Alert sensitivity (retries)

Set how many retries are attempted before an alert is triggered:

• None (default) — Alert immediately on first failure.
• 1 retry  — Retry once before alerting.
• 2 retries — Retry twice before alerting.
• 3 retries — Retry three times before alerting.

Retries help reduce false alerts caused by temporary network issues.

HTTP method

Select the HTTP method to use for monitoring requests:

• GET (default)
• PUT
• PATCH
• POST

This is useful for APIs or services that require specific request methods.

HTTP headers

In the HTTP Headers section, you can add custom headers to your monitoring requests. Each header has a name and a value.

For example, you can input:

• Header name: Accept
• Header value: application/json or text/html → This tells the server that the client prefers JSON or HTML responses.

Common header types

• Authorization

  Used to send client credentials when accessing a protected resource.

  Example: Authorization: Basic <credentials>

  You can also add username and password to further protect website checks.

• Content-Type

  Identifies the media type of the request body.

  Example: Content-Type: application/json → tells the server the request body contains JSON data.

• Cookie

  Sends previously stored cookies back to the server.

  This allows the server to associate the request with a specific user or session — e.g., remembering login state or language preference.

• User-Agent

  Identifies the monitoring request to the server. Useful for filtering or debugging request logs.

You can add multiple headers by clicking + Add More.

HTTP basic authentication

If your website or API requires Basic Auth, provide credentials here:

• Username
• Password

StatusGator will include these credentials in monitoring requests.

Saving changes

When finished, click Save. Your advanced settings will apply immediately to all future monitoring checks.