Posted by stan on November 8th, 2010
We’re pleased to announce a new addition to our monitoring services today (drum roll, please) – Real Browser Monitoring!
What is Real Browser Monitoring?
Real Browser Monitoring accurately measures the performance of real browser visits. By pinpointing performance issues using an actual browser, this service enables businesses to verify that their site and web applications are delivering the best possible user experience.
Traditional site monitoring tools emulate browsers to check a site’s availability and performance. That is perfectly suitable to get the performance and uptime under ideal conditions. Real Browser Monitoring however, allows you to verify a site’s performance as perceived by the end-user using a real browser.
Why should you care?
Today’s sites commonly use Web 2.0 technologies (Ajax, JavaScript, CSS and Flash) to allow collaboration between the components of a site from their different global locations. Sure, your site may load perfectly and swiftly from the office, and from other locations in your area, but how about other cities or other countries? If your site attracts more than a regional community of users, you should be thinking about using real browsers to monitor your website’s speed. Your own content may be optimized locally, but are all of your other components optimal as well? And, how optimized is your website for the international visitors you wish to reach?
The actual performance of your website (as your visitors experience it) is affected by:
- Third-party content (Google ads, Facebook applets, Twitter feeds, Discus forums, widgets, etc.)
- Dynamic content executed in the browser (JavaScript, AJAX, CSS)
- Effective use of a content distribution network
- The (network) distance between your site and your visitors, i.e. the UK, France, and Germany are close, but Australia and Brazil may be far away
Real Browser Monitoring checks that each component of a Web 2.0 site is correctly responding, and functionally verifies that your composite sites or sites are working – from the web server right through to the end-user’s browser. It benchmarks a website, reports the true end-user’s experience, and offers insight above and beyond regular website monitoring tools that synthetically emulate browsers to check a site’s availability and performance
Along with regular monitoring, we advise that you monitor full page load times with a real browser on an ongoing basis, and from all the regions and countries where your (potential) customers may reside.
The only way to accurately monitor the performance of each component of a Web 2.0 site is to use a real browser to execute the JavaScript.
You can start right now!
Already a WatchMouse client? If you are subscribed to one of our current plans you’re al set to use this new type of monitoring: Each of the plans included ‘scripting monitors’ which can now be used for either scripts or for real browser monitors. And you can extend your plan with extra real browser monitors here. Your first time? Then sign up for a free 30-day trial to experience real browser monitoring yourself right now!
Feel free to contact us if you have questions.
Happy Monitoring!
The WatchMouse Team
More on Real Browser Monitoring…