--- title: Blog — page 7 of 9 description: Practical guides on monitoring, reliability, and performance — plus product news and lessons from the WatchFor team. canonical: https://watchfor.io/blog/page/7 --- # What we watch for — page 7 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)[Guides](/blog/category/guides) [All articles](/blog/all) 229 posts · 167 article s · [62 tool guides](/blog/category/guides) · page 7 of 9 [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)[PerformanceJan 13, 2026 ## Web Font Performance: fast text without the flash Custom fonts make a site look great — and can quietly slow it down or make text vanish during load. Here's how to keep your typography both beautiful and fast.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/web-font-performance)[NetworkingJan 11, 2026 ## What is Latency? (and how to reduce it) Latency is the delay between asking for something and getting it — and it shapes how fast everything online feels. Here's what it is, what causes it, and the practical ways to cut it.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/what-is-latency)[NetworkingJan 09, 2026 ## Bandwidth vs Latency: what's the difference? “I have fast internet, so why is this slow?” Because speed has two dimensions — bandwidth and latency — and they're not the same thing. Here's the difference, with a simple analogy.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/bandwidth-vs-latency)[NetworkingJan 07, 2026 ## What is Packet Loss? (causes, effects and fixes) When data packets vanish in transit, calls stutter, games rubber-band and pages crawl — even on a 'fast' connection. Here's what packet loss is, what causes it, and how to track it down.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/what-is-packet-loss)[NetworkingJan 05, 2026 ## Anycast Explained: one IP, served from everywhere Anycast is the clever routing trick behind fast CDNs and resilient DNS: one IP address answered by the nearest of many servers. Here's how it works and why it matters.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/anycast-explained)[NetworkingJan 03, 2026 ## What is BGP? (and why it can break the whole internet) BGP is the protocol that decides how traffic travels between the world's networks — the internet's routing map. When it goes wrong, large chunks of the internet go dark. Here's how it works.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/what-is-bgp)[NetworkingJan 01, 2026 ## What is a Reverse Proxy? A reverse proxy is the front door to your servers — handling traffic before it ever reaches your app. Here's what it does, why nearly every serious site uses one, and how it differs from a forward proxy.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/reverse-proxy-explained)[NetworkingDec 30, 2025 ## Load Balancing Explained A load balancer spreads traffic across many servers so no single one gets overwhelmed — and quietly routes around the ones that fail. Here's how it works and why it's the backbone of scalable, reliable sites.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/load-balancing-explained)[SecurityDec 28, 2025 ## What is a Firewall? A firewall is the gatekeeper that decides which network traffic gets through and which gets blocked. Here's what firewalls do, the main types, and the gotcha they create for monitoring.WatchFor Team3 min read](/blog/what-is-a-firewall) --- Canonical page: https://watchfor.io/blog/page/7 · Site guide: https://watchfor.io/llms.txt