Uptime monitoring

#1

I have noted in the access logs of my Keystone Websites domain that uptime is being monitored by HostTracker. This has being going on for the last 7 days, and I have no idea why - I didn’t request this, and until last week I’d never even heard of HostTracker. The HostTracker service accesses my site every 60 seconds or so, which I think is rather excessive. It reports a 100% uptime, which I suppose is welcome.

Has anyone else found that HostTracker is monitoring their sites without being requested to? You’ll soon notice if they are - they make over a thousand page requests per day (with no bytes being transferred).

Simon Jessey
Keystone Websites | si-blog

#2

Just had a quick look at my logs here, no sign of HostTracker.

I took a look at their site, I see there is only a single contact email address, I wonder if asked to cease the logging, would they comply or ignore the request and just keep checking away.

Web Hosting Reviews | Shonky’s Blog

#3

Actually, I sent them an email about this 4 days ago:

[quote][i]It has come to my attention that you have been monitoring my website, http://keystonewebsites.com/, with your tracker service.

I have not requested this service, and I find that your system is accessing my site almost continuously, with intervals varying from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. There have been almost 3000 page requests from your service in the last 72 hours. Please remove me from your database immediately.

I would be grateful if you would reply to this email to let me know why this happened, and whether or not you have resolved the problem.[/i][/quote]
I have received no reply, and the tracking has continued.

Simon Jessey
Keystone Websites | si-blog

#4

That is poor form on their part, if they don’t reply sooner or later I guess you have no option but to block them using .htaccess, or failing that see if Dreamhost will block them at their gateway.

Web Hosting Reviews | Shonky’s Blog

#5

I agree. It is not doing me all that much harm at the moment (apart from soiling my statistics), but it is rather annoying.

Simon Jessey
Keystone Websites | si-blog

#6

Just to let you all know, I got a reply back saying (in rather iffy English) that monitoring had ceased. No explanation was given as to why the monitoring was happening in the first place.

Simon Jessey
Keystone Websites | si-blog

#7

Good to hear, and very suprising, my money was on them ignoring your email. :slight_smile:

Web Hosting Reviews | Shonky’s Blog

#8

I’ll ignore the spam comment and give credit where credit is due. That was very funny! I’ve done that a few times for laughs, but it is always more amusing with vaguely technical matters.

Simon Jessey
Keystone Websites | si-blog