“Uptime” and “online right now” answer different questions. A website can respond successfully when you check it and still have experienced several outages earlier in the day. WebLens separates those two ideas: Website Status is an instant check, while Website Uptime builds an observed history from repeated checks. That distinction matters when you are troubleshooting […]
“Uptime” and “online right now” answer different questions. A website can respond successfully when you check it and still have experienced several outages earlier in the day. WebLens separates those two ideas: Website Status is an instant check, while Website Uptime builds an observed history from repeated checks.
That distinction matters when you are troubleshooting an outage, reviewing a deployment, or trying to understand whether a service has been consistently reachable. The WebLens uptime tool starts collecting measurements when you first use it for a target, then records later checks so the reported percentages are based on observed results rather than an invented historical number.
What WebLens Uptime actually measures
For a monitored website, WebLens makes an HTTP request and records whether the public endpoint was successfully reached, the HTTP response code, and the request time. A successful HTTP response in the 200–399 range is treated as available for the uptime check. A request failure or a response outside that range is treated as unavailable.
The tool then uses the checks it has collected to calculate observed uptime over three windows: 24 hours, 7 days, and 30 days. It also shows the latest status, the current online streak, when monitoring began, the number of recent samples, the latest HTTP status, and the latest response time.
Uptime versus Website Status
The difference is simple but important. Website Status asks: Can WebLens reach this website now? Uptime asks: What percentage of the checks WebLens has recorded for this target were available during the selected period?
If you need a one-time answer, use the WebLens Website Status Checker. If you want an availability history, use the WebLens Website Uptime tool.
For example, a site might currently show ONLINE while its observed 24-hour uptime is 99.2%. There is no contradiction: the latest request succeeded, but one or more earlier checks failed.
Why the first result may say “Collecting data”
WebLens does not claim that a website was monitored before you started collecting observations. On the first uptime check, the tool creates a monitoring target and records the current result. Until enough observations exist for a meaningful time window, that window can show Collecting data.
This is deliberate. A percentage such as 99.99% only has meaning when it is based on actual checks. If monitoring began today, WebLens cannot truthfully tell you what happened last week.
How the monitoring works
After a target has been registered, WebLens schedules periodic checks. The current implementation uses a five-minute monitoring interval when WordPress cron is running. Each check records a timestamp, availability result, HTTP status when available, and response time.
That means the uptime percentage is an observed sample-based measurement. It is not the same thing as a contractual SLA and it does not represent every request made by every visitor. A short outage that occurs between two monitoring checks may go undetected.
How to read the 24-hour percentage
The 24-hour figure is calculated from the successful and unsuccessful samples recorded during the previous 24 hours. If 287 of 288 recorded checks were available, the observed availability is:
287 ÷ 288 × 100 = 99.65%
The calculation is based on samples, so the exact percentage can change when a new check arrives. It can also be affected by a failed check caused by a temporary network problem between the monitoring server and the target.
What the 7-day and 30-day numbers tell you
The longer windows are useful for seeing whether an incident is isolated or part of a recurring pattern. A 24-hour result can change quickly after one outage. A 7-day view gives you more observations, while a 30-day view provides a broader picture once the target has been monitored for that long.
Remember that the tool reports observed uptime. If monitoring has only existed for three days, the 30-day window cannot magically contain a full 30 days of evidence. The tool keeps the distinction visible through its monitoring start time and sample count.
Current online streak
The current online streak tells you how long the most recent consecutive successful checks have lasted. It is useful after an incident because you can see whether the service has remained reachable since the latest recovery.
A long streak does not erase previous failures. It simply describes the current sequence of successful observations.
What the HTTP status means
The latest HTTP status provides additional context. A 200 response usually represents a successful request, while 3xx responses indicate redirects. WebLens treats the 200–399 range as available for its uptime calculation. A 4xx or 5xx response is therefore recorded as unavailable for this specific uptime measurement.
This is a monitoring rule, not a universal definition of website health. A service could intentionally return a 404 for a particular URL while the rest of the application is healthy. Choose a target URL that represents the service you actually want to monitor.
Response time is a separate signal
Uptime tells you whether a check was considered available. Response time tells you how long the request took. A website can be technically available while becoming increasingly slow, so the latest response time is useful alongside the uptime percentage.
For deeper network latency testing, WebLens also provides a Ping / Latency tool, which measures TCP connection time to port 443. That is a different measurement from the HTTP request used by uptime monitoring.
Common troubleshooting cases
The site is online, but uptime is lower than expected
Look at the monitoring start time and sample count first. Then consider whether earlier checks failed because of an outage, a server timeout, DNS problems, or temporary network reachability. Compare the result with the site’s logs and your hosting provider’s monitoring.
The uptime percentage is still collecting data
That means WebLens does not yet have enough observations to populate that window. Keep the target monitored and allow scheduled checks to accumulate.
The site works in my browser, but WebLens reports a failure
A browser session and an automated server-side request can encounter different DNS answers, routing, access controls, TLS behavior, or application rules. Check the target from another network and inspect the HTTP Status Checker and SSL Checker for additional evidence.
I need an SLA-grade availability report
WebLens is a diagnostic and observed monitoring tool. Its sample interval and monitoring environment are not a replacement for a formal multi-region monitoring platform or contractual SLA measurement. For critical infrastructure, compare WebLens observations with your production monitoring and provider reports.
What WebLens Uptime cannot prove
An uptime percentage cannot prove that every visitor could reach the site, that every page worked, that the application returned correct business data, or that the site was healthy from every geographic region. It measures the checks performed by the WebLens monitoring environment against the target you supplied.
DNS changes, firewalls, rate limits, maintenance pages, application errors, regional routing, and third-party dependencies can all create situations where one observer sees availability and another does not.
Start monitoring a website
Enter the website URL in the WebLens Website Uptime tool to create or continue its observed monitoring record. Use the result alongside Website Status, HTTP Status, SSL, DNS, and latency checks when you need to understand why availability changed.
For the clearest troubleshooting workflow, start with the current status, inspect the latest HTTP response, then use the uptime history to determine whether the problem appears isolated or recurring.