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Core Concepts

Keyword Monitoring

Keyword Monitoring

Keyword monitoring verifies that specific content exists (or doesn't exist) on your web pages. This helps detect defacements, broken deployments, missing content, or unwanted changes that wouldn't be caught by uptime monitoring alone.

Use Cases

  • Verify deployments - Check that your latest version string appears on the page
  • Detect defacements - Alert if unexpected content like "hacked" appears
  • Monitor availability - Ensure critical content like "Add to Cart" is present
  • Compliance checks - Verify required disclaimers or legal text remain visible
  • Error detection - Alert if error messages like "Database Error" appear

How It Works

During each check, the system:

  1. Fetches your page content (respecting your monitor's timeout and header settings)
  2. Searches for each keyword in either the visible text or raw HTML
  3. Creates an incident if any keyword check fails
  4. Sends notifications to your configured channels
  5. Auto-resolves when all keywords pass again

Setting Up Keyword Monitoring

  1. Enable "Keyword" check type when creating or editing a monitor
  2. Add up to 10 keywords or phrases to monitor
  3. Choose the mode for each keyword:
    • Must contain - Alert if the keyword is NOT found
    • Must not contain - Alert if the keyword IS found
  4. Select the search target (visible text or raw HTML)
  5. Optionally enable case-sensitive matching

Search Targets

Target Description Best For
text Visible text only (scripts/styles removed) User-facing content
html Raw HTML source Meta tags, hidden elements, scripts

Keyword Modes

Must Contain

Creates an incident if the keyword is not found on the page. Use this to verify critical content is present.

Example: "Welcome to MyApp" should always appear on your homepage

Must Not Contain

Creates an incident if the keyword is found on the page. Use this to detect unwanted content or errors.

Example: "Fatal error" or "Exception" should never appear

Configuration Options

Option Description Default
phrase The keyword or phrase to search for Required
mode must_contain or must_not_contain must_contain
case_sensitive Match exact case false
search_target Where to search (text or html) text

Limits

  • Maximum 10 keywords per monitor
  • Each keyword can be up to 500 characters
  • Keyword monitoring requires a Pro plan or higher

Notifications

When keyword checks fail, you'll receive notifications including:

  • Which keywords failed and why
  • The monitor URL and region that detected the issue
  • Incident severity (critical for must_contain, warning for must_not_contain)

Recovery notifications are sent when all keywords pass again, including incident duration.

Best Practices

  • Be specific - Use unique phrases that won't appear by accident
  • Use visible text mode - Unless you need to check meta tags or scripts
  • Combine with uptime - Keyword checks complement uptime monitoring
  • Monitor error pages - Check for "404" or "maintenance" on critical pages
  • Version strings - Verify deployments with version numbers in footer

Example Configuration

{
  "keywords": [
    {
      "phrase": "Welcome to MyApp",
      "mode": "must_contain",
      "case_sensitive": false
    },
    {
      "phrase": "Fatal error",
      "mode": "must_not_contain",
      "case_sensitive": false
    }
  ],
  "search_target": "text"
}
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