Alert Types

VitalSentinel supports alerts across all monitoring modules. This guide covers every available alert type and when to use them.

Uptime AlertsCopy Anchor Link

Uptime Monitoring alerts use predefined configurations. Select from these available alert types:

Available PresetsCopy Anchor Link

When both Site is down and Site is up (recovery) are enabled, the recovery alert only fires for an outage the down alert reported. An outage too brief to trigger Site is down produces no recovery notification.

RUM AlertsCopy Anchor Link

RUM Monitoring tracks real user performance metrics. See Performance Thresholds for detailed rating breakdowns.

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)Copy Anchor Link

Example:

If LCP p75 > 2500ms → Warning
If LCP p75 > 4000ms → Critical

CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)Copy Anchor Link

Example:

If CLS p75 > 0.1 → Warning
If CLS p75 > 0.25 → Critical

INP (Interaction to Next Paint)Copy Anchor Link

Example:

If INP p75 > 200ms → Warning
If INP p75 > 500ms → Critical

TTFB (Time to First Byte)Copy Anchor Link

Example:

If TTFB p75 > 800ms → Warning

FCP (First Contentful Paint)Copy Anchor Link

Example:

If FCP p75 > 1800ms → Warning

Error RateCopy Anchor Link

Percentage of page views with JavaScript errors.

Example:

If Error Rate > 5% → Warning

CrUX AlertsCopy Anchor Link

CrUX Monitoring tracks Chrome User Experience Report data with custom threshold alerts.

Available MetricsCopy Anchor Link

Configuration OptionsCopy Anchor Link

• URL/Origin: Monitor specific URL or entire origin
• Device: Any, Phone, or Desktop

Example:

If LCP p75 > 2500ms (Origin, Any device) → Warning
If INP p75 > 200ms (Origin, Phone) → Warning

Synthetic AlertsCopy Anchor Link

Synthetic Monitoring runs Lighthouse tests with custom thresholds.

Available MetricsCopy Anchor Link

Configuration OptionsCopy Anchor Link

• URL: Select which monitored URL to track
• Device: Any, Phone, or Desktop
• Evaluation Window: the last test only, or the average of the last 3, 5, or 10 tests

Example:

If LCP > 2500ms (avg last 5 tests) → Warning
If TBT > 200ms (avg last 3 tests) → Warning
If CLS > 0.1 (last test) → Critical

Robots.txt AlertsCopy Anchor Link

Robots.txt Monitoring alerts use predefined configurations. Select from these available alert types:

Available PresetsCopy Anchor Link

Server Log Monitoring AlertsCopy Anchor Link

Server Log Monitoring alerts use predefined configurations, like Uptime and Robots.txt. Pick one from Alert Type. Each alert carries its own threshold and severity:

The first three are checked more often than the others, so problems that stop crawling reach you sooner. A ranking page is erroring to a verified bot and Money pages are going stale also use Google Search Console data, which lags by 2 to 3 days.

Firing server log alerts also appear under Open findings on the module's Overview.

Site Health Monitoring AlertsCopy Anchor Link

Site Health Monitoring alerts use predefined configurations, like Uptime and Robots.txt. Pick one from Alert Type. Each alert type covers one group of sitewide issues:

The form has no Severity field and no threshold for these alerts. Instead, Alert on issues of severity sets the lowest issue severity that triggers the alert:

The form shows this note: "Medium alerts are emailed only when your notification threshold is set to Info." Site reachable again does not have this field.

The Crawler blocked or disallowed email tells you how to let our crawler in. See Monitoring IPs for the allowlist steps.

Site Health Monitoring does not send an alert when your site goes down. To get that alert, use the Uptime alert Site is down.

Page Monitoring AlertsCopy Anchor Link

Page Monitoring alerts tell you about changes on the pages that you watch. VitalSentinel does not create these alerts for you. Create one rule for each kind of change that you want to know about.

Pick the kind of change in What to watch:

You can change the Severity of each rule.

Use Pages to set which pages the rule covers:

• All watched pages: The rule covers every page that you watch. It also covers pages that you start to watch later.
• Only these pages: The rule covers only the pages that you pick in the list.

Page element changed adds two more fields. In Page element, pick one of your page elements, or keep Any page element. In Condition, pick what triggers the alert:

Sitemap Monitoring AlertsCopy Anchor Link

Sitemap Monitoring alerts tell you about changes in your sitemaps. VitalSentinel does not create these alerts for you. Create one rule for each kind of event that you want to know about.

Pick the event in What to watch:

Sitemap shrinks and Sitemap grows add a percentage field: Shrinks by at least (%) or Grows by at least (%). The default is 10. Enter a whole number from 1 to 100. You can change the Severity of each rule.

Search & Traffic Alerts (Percentage Change)Copy Anchor Link

Google Search Console, Indexing, and Web Analytics alerts don't use fixed thresholds. Instead, they compare the current period against the previous one and trigger on relative change. These modules support three operators:

Each rule takes a comparison window (1, 3, 7, 14, or 28 days) that sets both the current period and the baseline it is compared against.

Google Search ConsoleCopy Anchor Link

Example:

If Clicks decreased by more than 30% (7-day window) → Warning

IndexingCopy Anchor Link

Alerts on the number of pages in each Google index-coverage state (Submitted and indexed, Crawled - currently not indexed, Discovered - currently not indexed, Not found (404), Server error (5xx), Blocked by robots.txt, and more).

Example:

If "Submitted and indexed" decreased by more than 15% (7-day window) → Critical

Web AnalyticsCopy Anchor Link

Example:

If Visitors decreased by more than 30% (7-day window) → Warning

Recommended Alert SetsCopy Anchor Link

Use the Create essential alerts with one click feature on the Alerts page to automatically create these recommended alerts across every module.

What Gets CreatedCopy Anchor Link

RUM Monitoring (p75 within last 24h, Warning, in-app only):

• LCP > 2.5s
• CLS > 0.1
• INP > 200ms

CrUX Monitoring (p75 within last 7 days, Origin, Warning, in-app only):

• LCP > 2.5s
• CLS > 0.1
• INP > 200ms

Synthetic Monitoring (Home URL, avg of last 5 tests, Warning, in-app only):

• LCP > 2.5s
• CLS > 0.1

Uptime Monitoring (with email):

• Site is down (Critical)
• Site is up / recovery (Critical)
• SSL will expire in 14 days (Warning) and 7 days (Critical)
• Domain will expire in 14 days (Warning) and 7 days (Critical)

Robots.txt Monitoring:

• Has syntax errors (Critical, with email)
• Blocks sitemap URLs (Warning, with email)
• File changed (Info, in-app only)

Server Log Monitoring (all 15 alerts above, at their default thresholds):

• With email: A verified crawler is being blocked, Crawlers are hitting server errors, A server log source has gone quiet, A ranking page is erroring to a verified bot
• In-app only: the other 11

Site Health Monitoring (Warning, with email, High and above on every alert except Site reachable again):

• Site reachable again
• Crawler blocked or disallowed
• Sitewide indexability problems
• Sitewide errors
• Sitewide rendering problems
• Sitewide SEO element problems
• Sitewide security problems
• AI bot access problems
• Sitewide link and crawl-path problems

If the domain already has a Site Health Monitoring alert of one of these types, the one-click set does not add it again. Page Monitoring and Sitemap Monitoring alerts are not in the one-click set.

Google Search Console (% change over 7 days, Warning, in-app only):

• Clicks dropped > 30%
• Impressions dropped > 30%

Indexing Monitoring (% change over 7 days, Critical, in-app only):

• Indexed pages dropped > 15%

Web Analytics (% change over 7 days, Warning, in-app only):

• Visitors dropped > 30%

RelatedCopy Anchor Link