Uptime Basics starts checking a website after you provide its name, public URL, check timing, and alert preferences. New monitors remain Unknown until the first check has produced enough information to determine their current status.
Before you begin
You need an active Uptime Basics account with an available monitor slot. The website must use HTTP or HTTPS and be reachable from the public internet on port 80 or 443.
Uptime Basics blocks private network addresses, local hostnames, embedded URL credentials, and other unsafe destinations. Protected websites can use the separate Basic Authentication settings.
Create the monitor
- Sign in and open the Monitors dashboard.
- Select New Monitor.
- Enter a recognizable Site name. This is the name shown in your dashboard and notifications.
- Enter the complete public URL. Keep
https://unless the website is intentionally HTTP-only. - In Check timing, choose an interval and timeout.
- Review the Email and SMS options under Alerts. New monitors begin with your account-wide alert defaults, but you can choose monitor-specific verified destinations.
- Optionally enable slow-response, SSL certificate, or domain-expiry alerts.
- Select Create Monitor.
Choose check timing
The available interval depends on your plan. Shorter intervals can identify an outage sooner, while a five-minute interval is a practical default for most small-business websites.
Timeout choices are 5, 8, or 10 seconds. Use a timeout that gives a normally healthy website enough time to respond without allowing genuinely failed connections to remain open unnecessarily.
What happens next
The new monitor appears on the dashboard as Unknown while its first checks are processed. A successful result changes it to Up. A failed individual check is saved in Detailed Logs, but Uptime Basics confirms failures before changing the monitor to Down.
The dashboard refreshes monitoring information automatically. A newly created monitor may appear immediately while its first status and chart data follow shortly afterward.
If the monitor cannot be created
- Confirm the URL includes
http://orhttps://and is publicly reachable. - Check whether the same URL and request method are already monitored.
- Confirm your account still has an available monitor slot.
- Remove credentials from the URL and use Basic Authentication instead.
- If the website uses a firewall or bot-protection service, review whether it permits external monitoring requests.