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If your website is slow or down, users don’t wait: they bounce. And with 2 billion websites just a click away, you don’t get many second chances. The same goes for internal systems. When network performance drags, so does productivity.
To keep services responsive and prevent downtime, IT teams need more than just alerts after something crashes. That’s where web and ping website checks come in. They give you the visibility to spot issues early, isolate the root cause fast, and keep users from ever noticing there was a problem.
TL;DR
What are Web Checks?
Web checks simulate real-world interactions with your website to see how it performs both for users on the internet and inside your network. We have two types of web checks: external and internal.
External web checks mimic what a customer or end user would experience. They test whether web services respond correctly and how long that response takes. These checks are run from multiple global locations either set by your team or a third-party monitoring provider like LogicMonitor to measure availability and performance from the outside in. This can include automated HTTP GET, POST, or HEAD requests that run on a schedule.
Internal web checks, on the other hand, focus on how your services respond to internal traffic. They’re run by data collectors inside your network to confirm that systems are accessible and performing well for employees or internal users.
When used together, internal and external web checks give IT teams a complete view of website health. That makes it easier to troubleshoot issues quickly and ensure users get a fast, reliable experience, no matter where they’re connecting from.
What are Ping Checks?
Ping checks are one of the simplest ways to verify if a website or server is reachable. They work by sending an ICMP echo request, a digital “Are you there?” to a target IP address. If the device responds with an echo reply, it’s online. If not, it’s unreachable.
These checks are fast and widely used for basic uptime monitoring. They tell you if something is up or down but not how it’s performing or why it’s failing.
Like web checks, ping checks can be run from inside or outside your network, depending on what you need to monitor. They’re a great first line of defense, when paired with deeper checks that provide more performance context.
Ping checks tell you if a site is up, but web checks tell you if it’s actually working.
Ping Website Checks vs. Web Checks: What’s the Difference?
Ping checks and web checks serve different purposes, but both are critical in monitoring strategy.
Ping checks operate at the network layer. They confirm availability and identify basic connectivity issues. And while they don’t offer performance details, the response time can still hint at problems like latency or a network bottleneck.
Web checks, on the other hand, work at the application layer. They provide insights into how your site or service is actually functioning, how long it takes for pages to load, whether requests are processed correctly, and what the user experience looks like in real time.
Together, they give you two views of your infrastructure:
- Ping checks = “Is it online?”
- Web checks = “Is it working the way users expect?”
The real value comes when you combine both. For example, with LogicMonitor, you can automate web checks that wait for all page elements to load before returning performance data. This way, you can pinpoint slow load times or broken services before users even notice.
Quick Comparison: Web Checks vs. Ping Checks
| Feature | Ping Website Checks | Web Checks |
| Purpose | Confirms if a site/server is online | Tests how a website or application responds to user requests |
| Layer monitored | Network layer (ICMP requests) | Application layer (HTTP/HTTPS interactions) |
| Key insight | Basic uptime check, no performance data | Provides performance and response time insights |
| What it detects | Connectivity issues, network outages | Slow page loads, failed logins, API failures |
| Best use case | Checking if a site or server is up | Monitoring end-user experience and web service availability |
Why Ping and Web Checks Matter
No one wants to learn about an outage from a frustrated user. By that point, productivity has stalled, customers may have walked away, and IT teams are stuck reacting to a problem they could’ve prevented.
To prevent these issues:
- Ping checks act as an early warning system for availability issues. They give you a fast, low-overhead way to track uptime and detect connectivity failures.
- Web checks go deeper and validate that critical services like APIs, authentication flows, and transaction paths are performing as expected.
Website uptime protects revenue and shapes user trust, employee satisfaction, and your brand’s credibility. In fact, research shows that nearly half of employees would leave if the tech they rely on daily keeps slowing them down.
With automated, recurring checks, IT teams can spot issues early and handle real problems before users even notice something’s wrong.
Industry-Specific Solutions: Why One-Size-Fits-All Monitoring Doesn’t Work
Every industry has unique demands and when it comes to uptime and performance. A generic monitoring strategy just doesn’t cut it. So, tailor your ping and web checks to your services and the risks you’re managing.
Here’s how different industries use them:
- Finance and banking: Every second counts when processing payments or handling logins. Ping checks confirm uptime, but web checks verify that portals and gateways respond quickly and securely with minimal risk and avoid compliance issues.
- Healthcare and telemedicine: Patient data and telehealth services rely on fast, uninterrupted access. Internal ping checks ensure reliable connectivity across hospital systems, while web checks validate performance for Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems and other patient-facing apps.
- E-Commerce and retail: Website speed directly impacts sales. If checkout pages lag, customers abandon their carts. In this case, ping checks verify uptime, and web checks confirm that different workflows from product pages to payment processing are performing as expected.
- SaaS and cloud services: Multi-region availability is a must. Global ping monitoring tracks latency issues across different locations, while web checks ensure API endpoints are responding properly for customers worldwide.
Building a Strong Identity Foundation in Network Monitoring
If network monitoring were a house, identity would be the foundation. It’s the framework that keeps everything secure, stable, and built for the long haul. Without it, you’re left with weak points that hackers can exploit, compliance gaps that put your organization at risk, and an IT environment that’s more reactive than proactive.
A solid identity foundation starts with knowing who’s accessing your systems, what they’re doing, and whether they should be there in the first place. Ping and web checks might seem like simple monitoring tools, but they play an important role in strengthening identity security. They validate uptime and performance while making sure that only the right users, devices, and services can interact with your network.
For example, in a Zero Trust model, every connection must be verified. Regular internal ping checks help IT teams detect unauthorized devices on the network, flagging potential security risks.
Web checks can also do more than just monitor performance. They can validate login page availability, API response times, and MFA workflows to make sure identity-based security systems are functioning properly.
Many service outages aren’t hardware failures, they’re identity authentication failures. If a single sign-on (SSO) service or identity provider (IdP) is sluggish or offline, users can’t access critical applications. Web checks can catch these authentication slowdowns early before they lead to mass lockouts.
Innovation in Identity
As identity security evolves, so does the way we monitor and protect authentication services. It’s no longer enough to just check if a service is up or down. You need smarter, faster ways to detect and prevent identity failures before they impact users.
Think about it like upgrading from a simple alarm system to an AI-powered security camera. Traditional monitoring tools, like basic ping tests, still have their place, but modern identity security requires real-time intelligence, automation, and predictive analytics to stay ahead of threats.
AI-driven monitoring helps you anticipate failures. Machine learning analyzes web check patterns, detecting anomalies in login failures and predicting authentication bottlenecks before they can cause you downtime. Instead of waiting for users to report issues, intelligent monitoring flags slow authentication services early.
Traditional uptime checks are growing into adaptive ping tests that adjust based on network conditions and security policies, ensuring authentication systems aren’t just online, but performing as expected.
Beyond detection, automated self-healing takes action. Web checks can restart authentication services, reroute login traffic, or trigger security protocols when failures occur, reducing downtime without manual intervention. The result? Faster resolutions, fewer disruptions, and seamless user access.
Take the Guesswork Out of Uptime and Performance Monitoring
Ping and web checks keep you ahead of issues but without the right platform, managing them at scale is complicated. LogicMonitor automates the entire process, giving you deep visibility into your network, real-time insights into performance, and the tools to resolve issues before they impact users.
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