Using Google Docs to monitor your website

There are many different ways to monitor your website. You can run a program (eg. Integrio Uptime Scout) locally on your own machine, you can use a web service (eg. FreeSiteStatus), and now you can summon the might of the entire Google infrastructure to tackle this task (via Google Docs) for free.

The whole thing is surprisingly easy to setup. You first make a copy of this spreadsheet. Then within your own copy of the spreadsheet, change the URL to point to the website you wish to monitor and the email address to be notified for uptime and downtime.

Then in the Google Docs menu, select Tools –> Script Editor to bring up the script editor window. Then select Resources –> Current Script’s Triggers. Under the "Run" drop-down menu, select "isMySiteDown". Then under "Events", select "Time-driven", followed by “Minutes timer” and choose how often you want your website to be checked (eg. Every 15 minutes). Now save the trigger and authorize Google Docs, then re-save. To get the script to run, select Run -> IsMySiteDown.

The script is also relatively easy to understand and customize, so if you have any special requirement, it should be quite straightforward to modify the script and adapt it to your needs.

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