Adding a Domain
Add the websites you want to monitor, see what happens on first setup, configure per-module settings, and work within your plan's domain limit.
Domains are the websites you want to monitor. Each domain has its own configuration for every module.
Adding Your First Domain
- From the dashboard, click Add Domain
- Enter your website URL (e.g.,
https://example.com) - Select the workspace (if you have multiple)
- Click Start monitoring this domain
VitalSentinel will verify your domain is accessible before adding it. This check is not the same as domain ownership verification.
You can add domains with or without www. VitalSentinel normalizes URLs automatically.
What Happens When You Add a Domain
Once a domain is added, VitalSentinel immediately starts:
- Sitemap Monitoring - Finds your sitemaps and reads them every day
- CrUX Data Collection - Collecting Core Web Vitals data from Chrome User Experience Report
- Lighthouse Tests - Running performance tests of the homepage (mobile and desktop)
- Uptime Monitoring - Checking homepage availability
- SSL Monitoring - Verifying certificate status and expiration
- Domain Expiration Monitoring - Tracking when your domain registration expires
- Robots.txt Monitoring - Watching for changes to your robots.txt
To collect real user data, you'll need to install the tracking scripts.
Site Health Monitoring and Page Monitoring do not start automatically. First, verify that you own the domain.
Domain Limits
The number of domains you can add depends on your plan:
| Plan | Maximum Domains |
|---|---|
| Free | 1 |
| Starter | 3 |
| Lite | 5 |
| Standard | 25 |
| Advanced | 50 |
If you've reached your limit, you can:
- Remove unused domains
- Upgrade your workspace plan
Domain Settings
Configure your domain: open the domain and select Settings in the Domain group of the sidebar:
Domain Verification
The first card on the page is Domain verification. Use it to prove that you own the domain. Site Health Monitoring and Page Monitoring start only on a verified domain. See Verifying Domain Ownership.
There is no sitemap setting on this page. Sitemap Monitoring finds and reads your sitemaps automatically.
Real User Monitoring (RUM)
- Consent mode - No consent (default) or Consent given. RUM saves nothing on the visitor's device at either setting; the setting controls whether the script may read device characteristics such as screen size, device memory, processor, and connection speed. Only pick Consent given for visitors who accepted your consent banner.
- Sample Rate - Percentage of visitors to track (1-100%)
- Engagement Tracking - Track clicks, scroll depth, and form interactions
- Debug Mode - Enable console logging for troubleshooting (under Advanced settings)
- Copy-ready script tag with your tracking ID
Web Analytics
- Storage Mode - None, Session, or Persistent. Session and Persistent store an identifier on the visitor's device, so obtain your visitors' consent before you enable either.
- Advanced settings (collapsible):
- Single Page App (SPA) Mode - Auto-detect, Enabled, or Disabled
- Debug Mode - Enable console logging
- Page titles, search terms and article authors - tick Do not store page titles or site-search terms to stop both from being stored. It is applied when events reach us, so there is no snippet change and no redeploy, and it reaches all traffic on the domain within about a minute. Your reports then show pages by URL only and you lose what visitors searched for. A second checkbox, Do not store article authors, stops the byline your pages publish from being stored, and the Authors report then stops filling in.
- Currency (under Report settings) - Set currency for e-commerce revenue display
- Copy-ready script tag with your tracking ID
Google Integrations
The Edit page shows the linked Google property for the domain:
- Google Search Console - Track search performance and indexing
If a property is already linked, the Edit page shows Change and Remove buttons. To link a property for the first time, open the domain's Google Search Console page from the sidebar – the property picker lives there. You connect the underlying Google account once, at the workspace level; see Workspace Integrations.
Managing Multiple Domains
Domain Overview
View all your domains from the dashboard:
- Domains are grouped by workspace by default – use Customize to organize them into your own custom groups
- Each domain card shows key metrics at a glance:
- RUM, CrUX, and Synthetic Core Web Vitals
- Web Analytics (visitors, pageviews, bounce rate)
- Indexing percentage
- Robots.txt status
- Page Monitoring (watched pages, pages that need attention, and changes in the last 7 days)
- Site Health Monitoring (site status, open issues, and healthy site sections)
- Sitemap Monitoring (URLs, and new and removed URLs in the last 7 days)
- Click any domain to see detailed monitoring
Removing a Domain
Deleting a domain immediately deactivates it and removes it from your dashboard. All associated monitoring data is kept for 30 days and then permanently deleted. Once that window ends, the data cannot be recovered.
To remove a domain:
- Go to Domain → Edit
- Scroll to Danger Zone
- Click Delete Domain
- Confirm the deletion
Troubleshooting
Domain Not Accessible
If VitalSentinel can't verify your domain:
- Check that the URL is correct
- Verify the site is publicly accessible
- Ensure no firewall is blocking our monitoring IPs
Missing Data
If you don't see monitoring data:
- Verify tracking scripts are installed correctly
- Check browser console for script errors
- Ensure sample rate is greater than 0
Next Steps
Adding a Workspace
Create workspaces to group domains, team members, and billing, choose a plan, and understand workspace roles and how to cancel a subscription.
Verifying Domain Ownership
Prove that you own a domain so that Site Health Monitoring and Page Monitoring can start. Use Google Search Console, Cloudflare, a DNS TXT record, an HTML meta tag, or an HTML file.
