How to Monitor a WordPress Site: Uptime, SSL and Performance

WordPress powers a huge share of the web, and its monitoring needs are specific: the site can be up while a page is broken, the SSL certificate can expire quietly, a plugin can change the homepage, and a compromised site can be blacklisted without any obvious symptom. Here is a practical monitoring setup for a WordPress site, and it fits inside a free plan.

Step 1: Uptime Monitoring (HTTP)

Start with an HTTP monitor on your homepage and, ideally, a second one on a deeper URL like a shop or article page. Monitorion checks the status code, response time, and can assert that specific content (a keyword or CSS selector) is present — so a "200 but the page is actually broken" failure still alerts you. Set the interval to every 5 minutes on the free plan, faster if you upgrade.

Step 2: SSL Certificate Expiry

Expired certificates are one of the most common WordPress outages, and they are easy to prevent. Add an SSL certificate monitor: it tracks days remaining, issuer, and chain validity, and warns you well before the certificate lapses. Pair it with a domain expiry monitor so the domain itself never silently lapses either.

Step 3: Content Change and Mixed Content

Plugins and updates change pages when you are not looking. A content change monitor alerts you when a page's content or a specific selector changes unexpectedly — invaluable after a compromise or a botched plugin update. Add a mixed content monitor to catch insecure HTTP resources sneaking onto an HTTPS page (a classic WordPress issue that browsers quietly block).

Step 4: Security and Health Checks

• Security headers monitor — grade the site's CSP, HSTS, and other headers and get alerted if they regress.
• Blacklist / DNSBL monitor — see if the site's domain or IP is listed on spam blacklists.
• Broken links monitor — crawl key pages to find 4xx/5xx links that frustrate visitors and hurt SEO.
• Heartbeat / cron monitor — if you run scheduled jobs (backups, cache clears), have them ping Monitorion so a silently failing cron alerts you.

Step 5: Performance

Speed affects revenue and SEO. Add a Lighthouse monitor to run automated Core Web Vitals and performance audits on a schedule, and get alerted when scores regress — instead of discovering it in a PageSpeed report weeks later.

Putting It on a Free Plan

The core WordPress setup above uses HTTP, SSL certificate, domain expiry, security headers, mixed content, and multi-step — all included in Monitorion's free tier of 15 monitors with 5-minute intervals and 7 check types. So the everyday safety net costs nothing; you upgrade only when you need faster checks, SMS or Slack alerts, or a public status page for your visitors.

Set it up now: create your free account and add your first WordPress monitors in about five minutes.