You can use Google Docs to monitor your website’s uptime and get instant alerts if your site is down or unavailable to visitors. The latest version of this Google Docs based website monitoring tool is even better:
  1. You can now monitor multiple websites and blogs for downtime/uptime in one go.
  2. In addition to email alerts, you can now choose to receive SMS alerts on our phone if any of your sites are down.
The text alerts are routed through Google Calendar and are therefore free.
In fact, this is probably the only tool that lets you monitor unlimited number of website domains and offers both SMS and email based alerts without charging a penny. Here’s how you can install the monitor in Google Docs in less than 60 seconds:
Website Monitor with SMS Alerts
Build your own website monitoring tool with Google Docs, SMS alerts included

Real-time Website Monitor with Text Alerts

  1. create a personal copy of the Website Monitor HD sheet in your own Google Docs account.
  2. You’ll see a new Website Monitor menu in the toolbar. Click Initialize and you’ll get a pop-up asking for authorization. Just say Yes.
  3. Put your Website URLs in cell B2 (comma separated) and your email address in cell B3.
  4. Go to the Website Monitor menu again and choose “Start Monitoring”.
That’s it. Close the Google Docs sheet and it will monitor your sites in the background. If you do not wish to receive SMS alerts, simply change the value of cell B4 from Yes to No.
The full source code of the project is available at ctrlq.org – no one else has access to your data and you can disable the script anytime by setting the email address in cell B3 to blank.
[*] If you aren’t getting text alerts on your phone, please ensure that your phone number is associated with Google Calendar as detailed in this tutorial.