Question 1

What is keyword monitoring?

Accepted Answer

Keyword monitoring checks whether specific words or phrases appear (or don't appear) on your web pages. It goes beyond simple uptime checks — your server can return HTTP 200 OK but still show an error page, a maintenance page, or missing content. Keyword monitoring catches these issues that status code monitoring misses.

Question 2

How does keyword monitoring work in upsonar?

Accepted Answer

When upsonar checks your website, it downloads the full HTML page and searches for your configured keywords (case-insensitive). You can set "must contain" rules (alert if keyword disappears) or "must not contain" rules (alert if keyword appears). If a violation is detected from the majority of monitoring regions across two consecutive checks, an incident is created.

Question 3

What is a soft 404 and how does keyword monitoring detect it?

Accepted Answer

A soft 404 is a page that returns HTTP 200 OK but displays "Page not found" or similar error content. Traditional monitors see the 200 status code and report everything is fine. With keyword monitoring, you can set a "must contain" rule for expected content (like your product name or a key heading), so you get alerted when the page content is wrong even though the status code is correct.

Question 4

How is upsonar's keyword monitoring different from competitors?

Accepted Answer

Most monitoring tools (UptimeRobot, Pulsetic) require you to create a separate "keyword monitor" alongside your uptime monitor — doubling your monitor count. upsonar includes keyword checks as part of your existing availability monitor. One monitor checks uptime, external dependencies (CDNs, scripts, fonts, images), AND keywords in a single pass.

Question 5

Is keyword monitoring available on the free plan?

Accepted Answer

Keyword monitoring is available on Pulse (€12/month) and Wave (€39/month) plans. The free Echo plan includes full uptime and dependency monitoring. You can configure unlimited keyword rules per monitor on paid plans.

Question 6

Does keyword monitoring affect check performance?

Accepted Answer

No. upsonar already downloads the full HTML page to parse external dependencies. Keyword matching is an in-memory string search on the same page content — it adds no additional HTTP requests or latency to your checks.

Question 7

What happens when a keyword rule is violated?

Accepted Answer

upsonar uses a two-check confirmation system: if a keyword violation is detected in the first check, it marks it as "pending". If the violation persists in the next check (confirmed by majority of regions), an incident is created with full details — which keyword failed, which regions detected it, and the timeline. You receive an alert through your configured notification channels.

Feature	Traditional monitors	upsonar
Keyword monitoring	Separate monitor type	Built into every check
Dependency monitoring	Not available	CDNs, scripts, fonts, images
Monitor count for one site	2+ monitors needed	1 monitor covers everything
False alert prevention	Single check	Multi-region + two-check confirmation
Soft 404 detection	Trusts status code	Checks actual page content

Keyword Monitoring

The problem with status code monitoring

How Keyword Monitoring Works

Configure rules

Automatic checks

Confirmed alerts

Use Cases

Catch "200 OK" Error Pages

Detect Soft 404s

Monitor E-commerce Inventory

Verify Deployments

How We Compare

Features

FAQ

Related

Stop trusting status codes