How I created website downtime alert system for free in 5 min

If you are building a lean startup or a side project and don’t want to spend 143 USD annually for Pingdom Service, a service that tracks the uptime, downtime, and performance of websites. In this post, you will be understanding how to make a basic alert system that will inform you via email when your website goes down or up. One can also use it to monitor their personal homepage or blog.

Just 5 minutes and you are done!

Step #1: Click on the link https://script.google.com/intro

Step #2: paste below code in code.gs file.

function myFunction() {
    

    var url = "http://example.com";
    
    var recipient = "youremailaddress@gmail.com";
    
    var down_subject = "down :" + url;
    
    var down_message = "Your website url :" + url + " is down rightnow";
    
    var up_subject = "up :" + url;
    
    var up_message = "Your website url :" + url + " is working rightnow";
    
    var scriptProperties = PropertiesService.getScriptProperties();
    
    if (!scriptProperties.getProperty("last_status")) {
        scriptProperties.setProperty("last_status", "up");
    }
    
    
    var last_status = scriptProperties.getProperty("last_status");
    try {
        var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url);
        var response_code = response.getResponseCode();
        Logger.log(response_code);
        if (response_code == 200 ) {
            
            if (last_status == "down") {
                scriptProperties.setProperty("last_status", "up");
                MailApp.sendEmail(recipient, up_subject, up_message);
            }
        }
        else {

            if (last_status == "up") {
                scriptProperties.setProperty("last_status", "down");
                MailApp.sendEmail(recipient, down_subject, down_message);
            }
        }
    }
    catch (error) 
    {
        Logger.log(error);
        if (last_status == "up") {
            scriptProperties.setProperty("last_status", "down");
            MailApp.sendEmail(recipient, down_subject, down_message);
        }
        return;
    }
    
}

Step #3: Save the file with the name “Downtime Alert” and change url and recipient email address in file.

Step #4: Click on play icon to Run (myFunction)

Step #5: Authorize script to Review Permissions.

Step #6: Click on clock icon to Set Trigger.

click on “No triggers set up. Click here to add one now.”

Step #7: Select values as seen in below image and save.

Now you have started tracking your website uptime status.
You will receive email when your site is down or up.

Tip: You can find your all scripts here https://drive.google.com/drive/search?q=type:script

If you have any issue with the code or any suggestion for improvements contribute on github repo