Performance monitoring prevents costly Web site downtime, improving the online customer experience, increasing sales and customer loyalty and reducing Web site maintenance costs. In 1999, as much as $9 billion in US retail sales were lost to slow Web site performance. Much of these losses were preventable, as monitoring would have instantly informed online merchants about site failures and slowdowns. With an abundance of affordable tools now available, small businesses can use performance monitoring to determine whether they are obtaining full value for the money they spend on outsourced Web hosting.

The new generation of subscription-based, remote monitoring services can provide comprehensive analysis on all aspects of a Web site's operation. The latest technology is designed to monitor Web sites, servers, secure Web servers, domain name servers, email servers, telnet servers, custom applications, routers and firewalls, Web site content and forms, CGI, ASP, PHP and other scripts, as well as secure Web page performance and e-business transactions. The non-stop external monitoring of these services occurs from a customer perspective so that the small business can pick up on problems and troubleshoot key elements of their Web site before customers begin to call them about poor service.

Most performance monitoring services are characterized by their immediate notification of problems by email, cell phone, SMS, pager and other devices. Most services also offer Web-based real-time reports of historical data showing performance and availability over time.

Services should provide quick and accurate diagnosis of problems when they do occur. Most monitoring services require zero capital investment, offer instant set-up and immediate results, and do not force customers to set-up, install or maintain software. Usually no integration issues and no technology risks are associated with using measurement performance technologies. And little technical experience or training should be necessary to use the service.

The only major consideration that a small business should make is whether the service is scalable enough to meet the needs of growing enterprise and e-business demands. Most services that are able to monitor databases, scripts and secure pages will fulfill the scalability requirement.

One of the most popular performance monitoring and Web enhancement services for small business is NetMechanic, which is operated by Keynote (keynote.com). The tool is available for $19.99 a month, a scalable program capable of monitoring multiple URLs at 15-minute intervals, 24 hours a day. The tool is capable of customized testing and custom notifications and allows for comparison of performance from multiple monitoring sites in the USA and the United Kingdom.

Another company that offers comparable services is Dotcom-Monitor (dotcom-monitor.com), which, in addition to traditional performance monitoring, offers a Web load stress test that can evaluate how a Web site responds to loads ranging from 10 to 500 simultaneous users. Dotcom-Monitor's services start at $75 per month.

These performance-monitoring services are suitable for the small business running a shared or dedicated server. They provide independent, third party verification of service uptime.