How Downtime Impacts SEO (and How to Build a Website Uptime Monitor with Google Sheets)

Typically, we have dozens of sites we have deployed on the Internet, but things can happen that cause the site to go down, e.g. you experience a DDOS attack, the server encountered a bug and stopped working, your last deployment crashed the production site, etc... Downtimes aren't just inconvenience - it's a potential disaster. Even a short downtime can affect your search engine rankings, frustrate users, and cost you traffic and therefore your revenue. In this blog, we'll explore how downtime can impact SEO and how you can build a simple uptime monitoring tool using Google Sheets and Google Apps Script. If you’re short on time, you can skip the DIY setup and grab a ready-to-use template here. Why Does Downtime Affect SEO? Search engines like Google prioritize reliable websites & services. When your site is unavailable, Search engine are "discouraged" from pushing your site upfront, it signals to search engines that your site may not be reliable. Here’s how downtime impacts your SEO: 1. Crawling Issues Search engines use bots to crawl your website periodically. If your site is down during a crawl, the bot may fail to index your pages, leading to: Missed opportunities for ranking updates. Pages being temporarily deindexed if repeated downtime occurs. 2. User Experience When users encounter a site that won’t load or load slowly, they leave it and fast and this can lead to: Increased bounce rates. Lower retention rate. Both are negative signals for search engines, which may reduce your rankings. 3. Lost Backlinks and Traffic If downtime occurs frequently, people linking to your site might lose trust and remove your links. This loss of backlinks directly affects your domain authority and organic rankings. 4. Competitor Advantage During downtime, users will search for alternatives and often ending up on competitor websites. Over time, this traffic shift can strengthen your competitors’ SEO position. How to Build a Website Uptime Monitor Step 1: Set Up the Spreadsheet Open a new Google Sheet. Create columns labeled: Website URL Status Last Checked Add the URLs of the websites you want to monitor under the “Website URL” column. Step 2: Get to Know Apps Script Apps Script is Google’s scripting platform for automating tasks in Google Workspace. It’s simple to learn and perfect for creating an uptime monitor. Go to Extensions > Apps Script in the Google Sheets menu. Familiarize yourself with the editor and basic commands like accessing sheet data and sending emails. Step 3: Create a Bare Minimum Uptime Monitor Copy and paste the following script into the Apps Script editor: function checkUptime() { var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getActiveSheet(); var data = sheet.getDataRange().getValues(); for (var i = 1; i New Deployment > Web App and configure access settings (e.g., anyone with the link). Fetch Data from the Spreadsheet: In your index.html file, use Google Apps Script to pass data to the client-side JavaScript: function getData() { const sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getActiveSheet(); const data = sheet.getDataRange().getValues(); return data; } Fetch this data in your index.html using google.script.run.getData and integrate it into your Chart.js configuration or display it in a table. Step 5: Go Further with a Ready Template Want to skip the setup process? Grab a pre-built template that includes: Automated monitoring and email alerts. A pre-designed dashboard with uptime stats. Collect users feedback Instructions for customization. My Own monitoring status page Get the template here. Next Steps Once your uptime monitor is up and running you can push the boundaries and : Add triggers to automatically run periodic checks Integrate webhooks to send alerts to tools like Slack, Discord, Telegram, etc.. Monitor additional metrics, such as response time. Manipulate your data to see insights in the charts With these steps, you’ll ensure you , protect your SEO, and keep your users happy. Start monitoring today and take control of your site’s performance!

function checkUptime() {
  var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getActiveSheet();
  var data = sheet.getDataRange().getValues();
  for (var i = 1; i < data.length; i++) {
    var url = data[i][0];
    if (url) {
      try {
        var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url, {muteHttpExceptions: true});
        var status = response.getResponseCode();
        sheet.getRange(i + 1, 2).setValue(status === 200 ? "Up" : "Down");
      } catch (e) {
        sheet.getRange(i + 1, 2).setValue("Down");
      }
      sheet.getRange(i + 1, 3).setValue(new Date());
    }
  }
}

   id="uptimeChart">