InternetSeer - Good or Bad???

I have just had a couple of reports from these guys correctly identifying some downtime on my hosts server - although I definately dont recall signing up with them but they did highlight the issue via email and brought it to my attention.

I have read some contradicting reports about them - are they recommended or not? Do they cause a problem if they are continually trawling your site and also would you recommend using their paid service or are there better alternatives - FREE outthere??

Thanks

 

I use the free service for a couple of sites. I have found them to be useful and they are not using up a lot of bandwidth checking uptime, if that's your concern.

I can't say I've done exhaustive research into alternatives but I have tried a couple of others which aren't as accurate (e.g., siteuptime flags a time-out as "site down" - I don't know what their time-out value is but it seems to be quite short).

 

Thanks Minstrel

Just wondered where they "popped" up from as I havent signed up with them to my knowledge (unless it was one of those mad "cant remember where you submitted" days we all have now and again!! ) - but given your comments I think I will have a good look at their service - as mentioned I probably wouldnt have noticed till a few hours later when I logged in so at least they highlighted the issue and at least the bandwith wont get a hammering!!

 

I think you have to sign up... but I've done that once or twice myself on those nights when I should have been asleep an hour ago...

 

they started monitoring one of my websites out of the blue (unless I signed up with them unknowingly) I think they offer more complete monitoring for a fee.

-RonMo

 

i forget which one... but you automatically get signed up for internetseer when you submit to a certain directory. sorry i can't remember which directory though.

 

Really? That must be new... I think I first signed up about 3 or 4 years ago.

 

well, i think for me anyway. About a year and a half ago i did a round of directory submissions for certain sites one day and have since gotten internetseer reports for those sites on a regular basis. So i'm not completely sure that is how it started, it could just be a coincidence. what i do know is that i did not sign up for the service knowingly. i don't mind so much though because it actually has alerted me to sites being down.

 

You might be right, RyanBlank. Maybe that's how I signed up as well, although I thought I had heard about them on a forum or something.

Either way, you can easily opt out if you wish and I find the service helpful so however I found it I'm happy I did