The webmaster is the “manager” of any website. Depending on the size of the development and support team, a webmaster may combine the duties of a designer, author, programmer, system administrator, moderator, content manager, technical support person and others. This term applies most often to small websites, as large portals have the ability to assign roles to several specialists or outsource them.
Therefore, if someone asks you “who is a webmaster? “, you can safely assert that this is a person who does everything. And indeed, for most people there are almost no impossible tasks for a webmaster. Although in fact a rare webmaster deals with everything at once. In most cases, a webmaster provides exactly the operability, useability, accessibility and loading speed of websites. And webmasters must do it by any available means.
Webmasters’ tasks and effective tools
In a broad sense, as mentioned above, the profession of a webmaster does not have a generally accepted list of requirements and rules for a specialist. There is also no clear definition of its tasks. Thus, a novice webmaster must have at least basic knowledge to understand what is required of him. Because employers cannot always formulate the task correctly, thus making it hard to complete some tasks or even to start them the way the website owner wants.
Most of any webmaster’s time is devoted to website maintenance. Website maintenance includes updating content, correcting broken links and images, as well as checking the compatibility of the website code with all browsers. If the website owner wants to make changes to the website, sometimes the task of the webmaster is to implement these changes. A good understanding of HTML and Javascript can help you create a website, and a comprehensive knowledge of SEO can help you improve your ranking in search engines.
In addition, webmasters constantly check websites for load time, ease of use, and functionality. Actually, it is a main webmasters’ task. Webmasters also check that any content on the website is easy to read and overall accessible. And considering all aforementioned, it is webmasters’ responsibility to assess and resolve problems as quickly as possible. Thus one of the most important aspects of the webmaster’s job is maintaining the website itself as well as the server which stores all the information for it.
Basic webmaster’s website monitoring tools
Webmasters need different tools to optimize their websites and ensure their stability. And since the optimization and stability of the website is directly related to search engine results, the basic tools for webmasters are provided by search engines’ providers. Thus, different search engines offer a set of tools appropriate to their own services. For example, search engines such as Google provide their own set of tools for monitoring and optimizing websites.
These tools help inform search engine crawlers about your website, help them index and display in search results. However, the term “Webmaster Tools” has become very popular. So Google changed the name to Google Search Console to make its product unique. Nevertheless, people still refer to it as Google Webmaster Tools and abbreviated as GWMT.
Google Search Console is very useful for webmasters and web developers. Thanks to the checks available in this service, you can optimize content and fix possible problems. The service will also show you what is happening to the website while technical work is being performed and will identify possible problems, if any.
However, this service has some problems. And the main one has to do with identifying problems on websites that are not directly related to Google. In such cases, it works slowly, thus making it hard to find the source of problems and fix them before something happens or Google Ads suspends advertising campaigns.
Advanced website monitoring tools
Basic webmaster tools require a lot of time and effort to learn. And much more time to master. But no one wants to spend a lot of time on one task every day. Therefore, regardless of who is involved in website monitoring procedures, it would be better to use sophisticated tools. Modern services such as HostTracker, which has proven itself as a reliable assistant, perfectly cope with this task. The main task of this system is to notify the website owner or webmaster in a timely manner in case of problems.
Overall, it is a very flexible website monitoring service that even a beginner can handle. This platform allows users to check the accessibility and stability of the user-defined website. This service provides this routine from different locations around the world, thus allowing the most precise diagnostics. Available complex checks and tests include, yet not limited to HTTP, ICMP, SMTP, SNMP, TCP and all other Internet protocols accessibility, website data and database checks and even server hardware overview. And much more in addition to everything. And comprehensive diagnostics using various tools makes it easy to identify global and local problems. At the same time, the system works completely automatically thus being independent from the webmaster.
Advanced methods of being in touch with website monitoring results
When problems are detected, this service notifies the webmaster or website owner. This allows them to monitor the occurrence of problems and learn about them in time. At the same time, the service eliminates false signs of problems as much as possible. This is necessary so that the webmaster can quickly fix these problems.
For this purpose, all HostTracker systems can send instant alerts to users in case of various occuring troubles or website outages. This system provides alerts of three types. Each type of notification alerts depends on websites’ stability or accessibility threat degree. Thus, if the problem is not dangerous, it only leaves a mark in the report. If problems can cause instability, alerts are sent via available free messaging methods. And if trouble can cause a website outage or already caused it, the system uses all available methods of alerting the user.
In addition, webmasters or website owners can receive three types of alerts: about occuring problems with the website, about major problems and about fixing issues. In the case of minor problems and troubleshooting, you need to fix them ASAP. The second type of notifications the webmaster receives in the case of an unsuccessful double-check, if it is a confirmed website outage. And the third type notifies about the restoration of the website’s functionality. This is useful for the owner, if the webmaster manages to fix the problems.
