--- title: Blog — page 5 of 7 description: Practical guides on monitoring, reliability, and performance — plus product news and lessons from the WatchFor team. canonical: https://watchfor.io/blog/page/5 --- # What we watch for — page 5 Practical guides on monitoring, reliability, and performance — plus product news and lessons from keeping our own systems online. [All](/blog)[Monitoring](/blog/category/monitoring)[Networking](/blog/category/networking)[Performance](/blog/category/performance)[Security](/blog/category/security)[Reliability](/blog/category/reliability)[Email](/blog/category/email)[DevOps](/blog/category/devops)[Engineering](/blog/category/engineering) [All articles](/blog/all) 136 article s · page 5 of 7 [NetworkingFeb 22, 2026 ## ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED: what it means and how to fix it Connection refused means you reached the server's door — and it slammed shut. Nothing is listening (or something is blocking). Here's how to track down which.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/connection-refused)[MonitoringFeb 20, 2026 ## How to Monitor a Website (a step-by-step guide) Monitoring your website sounds technical, but the essentials take minutes. Here's a plain, step-by-step guide to going from 'I hope it's up' to 'I'll know the second it isn't'.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/how-to-monitor-a-website)[MonitoringFeb 18, 2026 ## Server Monitoring Basics: CPU, memory, disk and network Before an app falls over, the server usually shows it coming. Here are the four resources to always watch — and what 'healthy' versus 'about to break' looks like for each.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/server-monitoring-basics)[MonitoringFeb 16, 2026 ## Database Monitoring: what to watch (and why) When the database struggles, everything that depends on it struggles too — usually as timeouts and slow pages. Here's what to monitor so the DB never becomes your silent bottleneck.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/database-monitoring)[NetworkingFeb 14, 2026 ## What is a Network Port? (and how to monitor one) An IP address gets you to the right machine; a port gets you to the right service on it. Here's what ports are, the common ones, and why monitoring them catches outages a website check misses.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/what-is-a-network-port)[MonitoringFeb 12, 2026 ## Keyword Monitoring: catching the '200 OK but broken' page A page can return a perfect 200 OK and still be completely broken. Keyword monitoring checks the actual content — so a blank page, an error, or a defacement doesn't slip past your checks.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/keyword-monitoring)[MonitoringFeb 10, 2026 ## Monitoring Microservices: seeing health across many moving parts Microservices trade one big app for dozens of small ones — and turn one dashboard into a puzzle. Here's how to monitor a distributed system without drowning in noise.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/monitoring-microservices)[MonitoringFeb 08, 2026 ## Monitoring Kubernetes: from pods to nodes to probes Kubernetes is brilliant at hiding failures — it restarts and reschedules so smoothly you may not notice trouble until it's everywhere. Here's what to watch so the magic doesn't mask a problem.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/monitoring-kubernetes)[MonitoringFeb 06, 2026 ## Monitoring Serverless (Lambda and friends) Serverless means no servers to watch — and a few new things that can go wrong. Here's what to monitor when your code runs as functions: cold starts, duration, errors and throttles.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/monitoring-serverless)[MonitoringFeb 04, 2026 ## How Often Should You Monitor? (choosing a check interval) Check too rarely and you find out about outages late; check constantly and you pay for it. Here's how to choose a monitoring interval that matches what each service is actually worth.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/monitoring-interval)[MonitoringFeb 02, 2026 ## Why Monitor From Multiple Locations? Checking your site from one place gives you one opinion — and it's often wrong. Here's why monitoring from multiple global locations kills false alarms and reveals problems a single check can't see.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/global-monitoring-locations)[PerformanceJan 31, 2026 ## How to Speed Up Your Website (the high-impact wins first) Website speed affects conversions, bounce rate and even SEO. The good news: most of the gains come from a short list of fixes. Here they are, roughly in order of impact.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/how-to-speed-up-your-website)[PerformanceJan 29, 2026 ## LCP Explained: Largest Contentful Paint (and how to improve it) LCP is the Core Web Vital that answers 'when does the page feel loaded?' Here's exactly what it measures, what counts as good, and the handful of fixes that move it most.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/lcp-explained)[PerformanceJan 27, 2026 ## CLS Explained: Cumulative Layout Shift (and how to fix it) CLS measures the most annoying thing on the web: the page jumping around as it loads. Here's what it is, what counts as good, and how to stop your layout from dancing.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/cls-explained)[PerformanceJan 25, 2026 ## INP Explained: Interaction to Next Paint (and how to improve it) INP is the newest Core Web Vital — it measures how quickly your page responds when people actually interact with it. Here's what it is, what's good, and how to make your site feel snappy.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/inp-explained)[PerformanceJan 23, 2026 ## Lighthouse Explained: how to read the score Lighthouse gives your page a 0–100 score across performance, accessibility, SEO and more. Here's what it actually measures, how to read it, and the trap of chasing a perfect 100.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/lighthouse-explained)[PerformanceJan 21, 2026 ## Image Optimization for the Web (the biggest easy win) Images are usually the heaviest thing on a page — and the easiest to fix. Here's how to make them load fast without looking worse: compress, resize, modern formats, and lazy loading.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/image-optimization)[PerformanceJan 19, 2026 ## Caching Explained: browser, CDN and server caches Caching is the closest thing the web has to free speed: store a result once, reuse it many times. Here are the three layers of caching, how each works, and the one hard part — invalidation.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/caching-explained)[NetworkingJan 17, 2026 ## HTTP/2 vs HTTP/3: what actually changed HTTP keeps getting faster. HTTP/2 fixed how requests share a connection; HTTP/3 changed the connection itself. Here's what's different, in plain terms, and whether you should care.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/http2-vs-http3)[PerformanceJan 15, 2026 ## Gzip vs Brotli: web compression compared Text compression shrinks your HTML, CSS and JS before they travel — for free speed. Here's how gzip and Brotli compare, and which to use where.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/gzip-vs-brotli) --- Canonical page: https://watchfor.io/blog/page/5 · Site guide: https://watchfor.io/llms.txt