News
New functionality: Site Performance Index graph (2007-08-17)
A new graph type has been added to the monitoring graphs: Site Performance Index.
The new graph is available for all WatchMouse users as of now, and can be found on the graphs page. Select "Site Performance Index" from the first drop-down menu (Display).
This graph shows the WatchMouse Site Performance Index (SPI) for the selected rule(s).
Note: Only rules of the type http and https are included in this graph.
The SPI graph enables you to compare the performance of your web servers. In order to make a fair comparison, the time-out for all rules should be the same.
The WatchMouse Site Performance Index (SPI) contains information on both the availability (or uptime) and the speed of a website. That makes the SPI an accurate representation of the average "waiting time" for a visitor: the higher the SPI, the longer visitors have to wait, on average, for the site to load. A low SPI is good, i.e. the shortest bar in this graph represents the site with the fastest response time and shortest waiting time.
The SPI values in the graph indicate only a relative SPI of your own web sites. If you want to compare your sites to those of your competitors use the WatchMouse SPI performance benchmarking.
Press releases
European e-commerce sites poorly prepared for Christmas rush (2004-12-24)
Comparison with US "role models" Amazon and Barnes & Noble
THE NETHERLANDS, 20041223 -- Many European e-commerce sites have made only minimal preparations for the increased number of visitors in December. The congestion caused by Christmas meant that, on average, only one in six web sites was continuously available. This was the conclusion of WatchMouse, a Dutch monitoring service provider, following a survey of over 50 European e-commerce sites. Excessive interest from customers can overload the server or have dramatic effect on response times.
During the past month, WatchMouse – at its own initiative – closely monitored over 50 web sites where consumers can shop online. The survey shows that the availability varied from 98% to 99.6%. "This may seem high, but a score of 98% means that a site is not available for half an hour per day. This makes 14 hours a month, or a week a year", says Mark Pors, one of the founders of WatchMouse.
As a comparison to the US market, two "role models of e-commerce" - amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com - were monitored during the same period. Amazon`s performance was similar to that of the average European web shop, whereas Barns & Noble outperformed most e-commerce sites with an uptime of 100%.
The consequences of downtime are reflected not only in loss of income. Pors: "A website that is not available can cause stacks of work for your helpdesk and, at the end of the day, damage your brand. The problem is that many website owners are unaware that sites are responding poorly, or not responding at all. If they were aware of this, taking action to intervene is simplicity itself: for example, by adding extra server capacity."
WatchMouse has concluded from its survey that more than 70% of the web sites have not achieved optimum accessibility. Given the increasing trend in online purchases, gigantic sums are involved: Online sales will increase by 44% to €13 billion ($17 billion) in Western Europe over the holidays period, compared to €10 billion ($13 billion) in the US (Forrester Research, November 2004).
December is a top month for purchasing on the internet. Pors: "We see response times and the number of error reports increase dramatically in the days leading up to Christmas."
About WatchMouse
Companies can easily monitor their internet sites themselves, thanks to WatchMouse’s monitoring service.
WatchMouse has been monitoring internet sites and e-commerce applications for companies across the globe since 2001. WatchMouse has thousands of customers in more than 70 countries. WatchMouse services are available in seven languages, and analyses are carried out through the world-wide monitoring network from a range of locations and networks.
Meerderheid e-commerce sites kan komende kerstdrukte niet aan (2009-05-14)
WatchMouse voorziet wachtende e-shoppers
UTRECHT 20051201 -- Nu de decemberinkopen weer in alle hevigheid zijn losgebarsten, blijken veel online shops regelmatig 'gesloten' te zijn. Dat concludeert WatchMouse in haar jaarlijkse bereikbaarheidsonderzoek van cadeausites. Het Nederlandse sitemonitoringbedrijf heeft net als vorig jaar een onderzoek gehouden onder webwinkels. Slechts drie sites in het onderzoek haalden de maximale 100%. Het merendeel haalt zelfs niet de score die door hosting providers wordt aangehouden als absoluut minimum.
Veel sites zijn maar matig voorbereid op grote aantallen bezoekers. Door de grote belangstelling raken servers regelmatig overbelast. Ook blijken reactietijden van sites dramatisch dalen. Het onderzoek dat WatchMouse in de weken voor Sinterklaas heeft gehouden, laat duidelijk zien dat sites problemen vertonen naarmate er meer bezoekers in de webwinkels verschijnen.
Om te controleren of e-commerce sites goed bereikbaar zijn, heeft WatchMouse de hele maand november controles uitgevoerd. De uptime bleek regelmatig onder de 99.9% te liggen, een grens die in veel service level agreements (SLAs) van hosting providers geldt als minimum. Dat percentage wordt maar door tien van de 25 sites gehaald. Neckermann, Bonaparte en eBay zijn de enigen met een score van 100%. Vorig jaar waren er nog zes sites die een maximale uptime haalden.
De bereikbaarheid van Kijkshop, Bart Smit, de Bijenkorf en Wehkamp blijkt verre van optimaal. De score van Wehkamp, 97.27%, betekent bijvoorbeeld dat deze site per dag meer dan een half uur slecht bereikbaar is.
De grootste stijger was Bonaparte (kleding) die van de 17e plaats in 2004 steeg naar een gedeelde eerste plaats. eBay bleef als enige twee jaar achtereen op 1. De grootste daler was ECI die van een gedeelde eerste plaats in 2005 naar de 23ste plaats zakte.
In het licht van de toenemende bestedingen online kan de economische schade voor een site groot zijn. In de eerste zes maanden van dit jaar is er online ruim een miljard euro besteed, concludeert de Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor 2005. De online bestedingen maken met 37% ten opzichte van dezelfde periode vorig jaar bovendien een snelle groei door.
Consument gewend aan snelheid
"In vergelijking met vorig jaar zijn effectieve maatregelen uitgebleven", zegt Mark Pors, CTO van WatchMouse. "Consumenten zijn gewend aan snelheid op internet. Moeten ze wachten op een site, dan blijken ze zeker voor decembercadeaus gemakkelijk naar een andere site te gaan. Veel bedrijven weten echter niet dat hun sites matig bereikbaar zijn.”
Opvallend zijn verder de sites die 100% halen. Pors: “Twee van de drie blijken in het buitenland gehost te worden. Waarschijnlijk is men in de VS (eBay) en Duitsland (Bonaparte) wel gewend de sites goed te dimensioneren”.
Vorig jaar bleek de kerstperiode overigens nog drukker dan de periode voor Sinterklaas. Om die reden zal WatchMouse ook in de weken voor kerst blijven monitoren. Vlak voor kerst verwacht WatchMouse met de resultaten te komen van die tweede testperiode.
Het onderzoek liep van 1 t/m 30 november 2005. Van 'downtime' is sprake als een site een foutmelding geeft of de HTML na acht seconden niet ontvangen is, en dit vanuit een tweede meetpunt bevestigd is. Het complete bereikbaarheidsonderzoek is te vinden op: http://www.watchmouse.com/availabilityindex/2005/eshops_NL.php
Over WatchMouse
Bedrijven kunnen eenvoudig hun websites controleren door gebruik te maken van de monitoringdienst van WatchMouse. WatchMouse controleert sinds 2002 Internetsites en e-commerce toepassingen van bedrijven over de hele wereld. WatchMouse heeft duizenden klanten in meer dan 70 landen. De dienst is beschikbaar in acht talen en de analyses worden uitgevoerd vanuit een groot aantal locaties in het wereldwijde WatchMouse monitoring netwerk. Eerder dit jaar werd WatchMouse uitgeroepen tot Rising Star in de Deloitte Fast 50. Deze award wordt jaarlijks toegekend aan snel groeiende technologiebedrijven die nog geen vijf jaar bestaan
Even website hosting companies have too little uptime (2007-02-05)
Leaseweb, Rackspace and WideXS score well
Utrecht, 5 February 2007 – Research carried out by WatchMouse, the Dutch site and server monitoring company, has revealed that many website hosting companies are not achieving optimum performance in terms of uptime. During the months November and December 2006, the company registered the average loading times and availability of the sites of eleven website hosting companies. Leaseweb, Rackspace and WideXS came out on top.
The three best-performing companies all had an average uptime of 99.99% or higher. A good score, says WatchMouse, although the company pointed out that, even when achieving this score, a site will still be unavailable for eight hours every year. The reasons for this downtime vary between sites, although problems with the name server (DNS) and excessive loading times dominate. The types of problem also differ from site to site, indicating that good choices – for example for DNS solutions – are essential.
Companies which scored 99.7% or less are at risk of losing clients annually owing to their site loading too slowly, or unavailability of the web page. Four of the eleven hosting companies scored below this limit and will therefore have to work on their availability. Nevertheless, the organisations tested generally performed better than the average bank website, for example.
"On the one hand, it is reassuring to see that website hosting companies recognise the importance of good availability. Nevertheless, there is room for improvement, particularly as it is precisely these companies that should be setting the pace", says Mark Pors, Chief Technology Officer at WatchMouse. "Customers looking for a web hosting company will not want to entrust the management of their site to a hosting company whose own site is unreliable. Optimum performance is therefore crucial, for these companies in particular."
The full results of the survey can be obtained from the WatchMouse site: www.watchmouse.com
Linux-based website beats Windows-based sites (2007-06-24)
WatchMouse research shows Linux/Apache has less downtime and yields faster websites than Microsoft/IIS
London, June 20, 2007 – Linux websites have better uptime and load faster than Windows-based websites. Research by WatchMouse, a website monitoring company, also shows that web server platform Apache outperforms the Microsoft IIS platform. Therefore, having a Linux website and an Apache webserver platform offers the best choice for professional web pages.
WatchMouse researched the performance of over 1500 websites across different economic sectors in Europe. Most websites in this study are based on either Linux or Windows. Linux offers the best uptime. When looking at web server platforms the overall opinion favours Microsoft IIS and Apache although the latter outperforms the former in this area as well. The research finds that apart from operating system and web server platform, uptime also depends on the country where the server is based.
On average, Windows and Linux are running more than three quarters of all websites. However, there are differences between countries. Poland and Germany favour Linux combined with Apache for their websites while the professional sites in the UK and Sweden rely heavily on Windows/ Microsoft IIS. When looking at the relative performance of the different web server platforms, Linux clearly beats Windows.
One in four of the monitored professional websites have an uptime of 99.9% which suffices for customer satisfaction. Two thirds of the websites have an availability of less than 99.9% which accounts for at least 8 hours downtime per year. According to WatchMouse this is not acceptable.
“Even though the companies in our study seem to prefer Windows over Linux, our research shows they would be better off using Linux/Apache based websites. Research has shown that most web users are very impatient and will wait no longer than four seconds for a webpage to load”, says Mark Pors, Chief Technology Officer at WatchMouse. “Companies need to realise that website uptime is crucial for a healthy customer satisfaction and a solid client base. Organisations need to become more aware of the impact the choice of web server platform can have on their overall availability and performance.”
A complete overview of the monitoring results of the WatchMouse Site Availability Index, listing all the sites monitored, can be found on
http://www.watchmouse.com/SPI/
In the press
Linux-based websites 'perform better' (2010-01-13)
Linux-based websites perform better than those hosted on Windows servers, according to research.
WatchMouse, a Dutch firm that monitors server performance, based its research on a survey of over 1,500 European websites. The company says that, although the websites it surveyed were more frequently based on Microsoft's IIS web server platform running Windows than on Apache running Linux, the latter option performed better in terms of both uptime and load time.
